tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36735769713684446902018-03-08T07:52:10.008+11:00Australia-Japan Community Network (AJCN) (EN)Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-74021351658813323392018-02-21T13:41:00.001+11:002018-02-21T13:41:54.944+11:00Much Of What You May Think You Know About Korean ‘Comfort Women’ Is Wrong<div style="text-align: right;">By <b>JASON MORGAN</b> on February 12, 2018</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qBnThVNEQBk/WozaMIbViJI/AAAAAAAAArY/E4AnOuzTrawW43AiBvispwJtUWJ0vnGiACLcBGAs/s1600/21_02_2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="840" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qBnThVNEQBk/WozaMIbViJI/AAAAAAAAArY/E4AnOuzTrawW43AiBvispwJtUWJ0vnGiACLcBGAs/s640/21_02_2018.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />The comfort women issue exploded in 1992 when Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki announced the discovery of documents linking the Japanese government to the wartime brothel network in the 1930s and ‘40s. Japan was accused of abducting hundreds of thousands of women as sex slaves, and then of massacring them in droves once the Fifteen-Year War in Asia had been all but lost. The main victims were said to be Koreans. Japanese politicians made endless apologies, and the anti-establishment Japanese press had a field day. Even the United Nations got involved, releasing the infamous Coomaraswamy Report on the comfort women issue in 1996.<br />For South Korea, where anti-Japanism is a perennial centerpiece of statecraft, the comfort women issue would seem to be a diplomatic slam dunk. And yet, the more South Korea presses the topic, the more it loses ground.<br />There are two main reasons for this.<br />First, the key comfort women claims are not true. Apart from rare war crimes (wherein offenders were later tried and punished), there was no systematized “forced abduction.” There were nowhere near “200,000 comfort women”. Many of the comfort women were not Korean. Much of this fantasy flowed from the pen of a communist named Yoshida Seiji, whose 1982 work of fiction, <i>Watashi no senso hanzai</i> (“My war crimes”), was treated as fact by the <i>Asahi Shimbun</i> newspaper. Today’s comfort women partisans continue to recycle Yoshida’s points, even if they do not cite him by name. Indeed, even the Coomaraswamy Report is essentially a rehashing of Yoshida’s book.<br />The second reason is that the closer one examines the comfort women issue, the worse other countries (including South Korea) begin to look.<br />From the ancient Greeks to the American Civil War to <i>Bordels Mobile de Campagne</i>, prostitutes have always followed the columns. German researcher Magnus Hirschfeld was the first to investigate the inseparability of war and sex. During the Great War, Hirschfeld found, there was heavy traffic at brothels arranged by combatant governments. Business boomed.<br />World War II was different, with men stationed in far-flung garrisons surrounded by potentially hostile locals. Americans, with the largest military-run brothel system in the world, had the luxury of locating their comfort stations along Hotel Street in Honolulu, far from enemy lines. For security reasons, Japanese field commanders forbade patronizing local prostitutes in order to stem information leaks.<br />Also fearing reprisals by Chinese civilians, high-ranking Japanese officials, in imitation of Western models, set up “comfort stations” (<i>iansho</i>) in an attempt to reduce the scourge of rapes bedeviling operations. The recruitment of women for these iansho was often subcontracted to madams in Japan and pimps in Korea. (This was made much easier because the Korean peninsula, under the yangban system, had centuries of experience in buying and selling young women — another inconvenient fact for comfort women diplomacy.)<br />While the Japanese military strove to end wartime rapes, some other combatant countries actually <i>encouraged</i> it. The worst offender during World War II was surely the Soviet Union, whose troops went on a rape rampage at the end of the war. In Manchuria, countless Japanese women committed suicide after being brutalized by advancing Soviet troops. (Although not encouraged by commanding officers, U.S. GIs raped French women by the thousands after liberating Normandy.)<br />Controlling venereal disease was the other calculus in a commander’s decision to provide his men with prostitutes. U.S. Gen. Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers, for example, were often grounded by syphilis and gonorrhea. Although forbidden to visit Kunming’s notorious red-light district, where the VD infection rate was said to be 100%, GIs kept going anyway. Exasperated, Chennault flew in prostitutes from India until Gen. Joseph Stilwell intervened.<br />Surprisingly, the comfort women system did not end in 1945. The Korean War brought comfort stations for troops from the United States. Indeed, the South Korean government supported this peninsular comfort women system. Former president Park Chung-hee personally signed an order in 1977 to clean up the “camptowns” where “Western princesses” serviced U.S. troops. The aim? To keep the American military in South Korea and U.S. dollars flowing into the economy. South Korean women who work at the brothels thronging U.S. bases are still stuck in an endless cycle of sex work and societal discrimination.<br />The hard truth is that South Korea is also guilty of heinous war crimes. In 1966 and 1968, for example, South Korean troops savagely raped and butchered dozens of defenseless Vietnamese peasant women in Binh Tai, Phong Nhi, and Phong Nhat. There is also the record of Korean cruelty against Allied POWs in World War II, and the sad legacy of the Lai Dai Han, the tens of thousands of abandoned, illegitimate children of South Korean soldiers born during the Vietnam War. It is a losing diplomatic gambit for any nation to bring up the history of wartime violence against women.<br />However, there is something much more sinister afoot with the comfort women issue than just shortsighted diplomacy. Today, the United States is home to several comfort women statues, most recently in San Francisco. (The mayor of Osaka, San Francisco’s sister city, cut ties after the city council approved the statue.) Comfort women statues can be found throughout South Korea, as well, most notably in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan. A comfort woman statue went up late last year in Manila, and in Sydney in 2016.<br />What do all these locations have in common? They are all key American allies in Asia. And the country with the biggest interest in breaking up American alliances with Asian nations is, of course, the People’s Republic of China. The comfort women controversy is a <a href="http://japan-forward.com/history-wars-chinese-propaganda-vs-japan-gains-ground-in-canada/#comment-157" target="_blank">Chinese weapon</a> to destabilize American relations with Asia and weaken Japan’s standing around the world. This is the overriding reason why South Korea must cease pressing the comfort women issue: it is now a subsidiary of the Chinese information war.<br /><br />Jason Morgan is assistant professor at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan, and a research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. He holds a PhD in Japanese history from the University of Wisconsin, and an MA in Chinese Studies from the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa. From 2014 to 2015 Morgan was a Fulbright scholar at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has written for Japan Review, Michigan Historical Review, JAPAN Forward, the Journal of American-East Asian Relations, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, the Journal of Asian History, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, among other publications. His best-selling book, “<i>Amerika wa naze Nihon wo mikudasu ka?</i>” (“Why does America look down on Japan?”), was published by Wani Books in 2016. Morgan is also the translator of Hata Ikuhiko’s 1999 book on the comfort women, available from Hamilton Books this year.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-34541483599119156962018-02-19T17:20:00.002+11:002018-02-19T18:11:15.056+11:00Sympathy for Korean Comfort Women Now & Then<br /><div style="text-align: right;">Tetsuhide Yamaoka</div><div style="text-align: right;">President of Australia-Japan Community Network Inc.</div><br /><br />“You are denying comfort women!”<br />An Australian journalist well known for his hatred of the Japanese Imperial Family yelled at me over the phone.<br />“No,” I replied. “Of course the comfort women existed. Nobody is denying it as far as I know.”<br />“Then why don’t you honor them?”<br />“We do honor women’s human rights. Yet we do not agree with what the Korean activists claim.”<br />He then grew even more irritated and aggressive. When I asked him to calm down, he lost his temper and hung up on me.<br /><br />The reporter’s tantrum notwithstanding, I strongly believe that we should be deeply sympathetic towards Korean women. Their plight has been hard. Before Japan’s annexation and modernization, Korean women born in the lower social classes were literally enslaved and traded against their will. There were Korean officials who forcibly took women away from their homes in order to send them to the rulers of China as tribute payments. Desperate parents sometimes hid their daughters or even scarred their faces to spare the young girls such a fate. Because of this lingering historical trauma, an elderly Korean gentleman once explained to me, Koreans were well primed to believe the “comfort women abduction narrative” fabricated by a con man called Seiji Yoshida and spread by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.<br /><br />These practices were banned under Japanese rule, but the underlying feudalistic attitude of male dominance remained into the modern era. Before the arrival of the Japanese, Koreans had seen little use in educating females, who overall suffered much worse oppression than their counterparts in Japan. Young girls fleeing home were easy prey for human traffickers, and many ended up in prostitution.<br /><br />During the annexation era, the Japanese introduced into Korea the licensed prostitution system already widespread in Japan. While the complete eradication of prostitution proved impossible, the licensing system strictly controlled pre-existing prostitution engendered by human trafficking. It was still not uncommon in Japan at that time for poor parents to sell their daughters to brothels under contract, especially in the poverty-stricken north. The government established strict rules for this baneful custom in the hopes of eventually eradicating it.<br /><br />The Korean peninsula was much poorer than Japan, so when the Japanese system was introduced there it ended up allowing Korean parents to legally sell their daughters to brothels. Kim Hak Sung, the first former comfort woman to come forward during the 1990s, once testified that she was sold to a kisaeng (female entertainer) house by her mother. The law stipulated that such transactions were illegal without the consent of the daughter, who had to be released once she had paid off the advance payment provided to her parents. However, Professor Lee Yong-hoon of Seoul University contends that Korean pimps forcibly took away daughters even when they refused to consent to it. But even without the intervention of these pimps, daughters in Confucian Korea had little power to refuse their parents’ commands.<br /><br />Japan’s military comfort woman system was an extension of the prevailing licensed prostitution system, which was in turn grounded in the ancient Korean practice of human trafficking in women. The Japanese government should reiterate that, by today’s standards, such a practice would be—indeed is—unthinkable. However, by the same token, countless records show that Japanese police arrested Korean brokers who were deceiving and kidnapping local women. While laboring under the strictures of vicious local customs, the Japanese during the colonial period still strove to ameliorate the positions of vulnerable females.<br /><br />Activists portray the comfort women issue as black and white, and Japan as uniquely evil. But the system was clearly not a simplistic perpetrator-victim relationship. Korean parents and Korean vendors played a significant role. Furthermore, Korean men who joined the Japanese Imperial Army used the comfort women just like all the other troops. Conscription did not take place on the Korean peninsula until September 1944, less than a year before the end of the war. Yet by that time, hundreds and thousands of Korean men (who were Japanese at the time) had already volunteered and were serving in the Japanese Imperial Army. In their private meetings at the comfort stations with Korean comfort women, those Korean troops would have been able to communicate with the women in their own language. If even one woman had mentioned having been forcibly abducted, the Korean troops would have rioted against their commanding officers. This is not speculation—Korean POWs told their Allied captors as much. Korean men knew that the comfort women servicing them had either signed up voluntarily or else had been sold by their parents. The latter practice was so common that even heavily armed Korean soldiers showed no reaction when meeting Korean women who had been trafficked in this way.<br /><br />The fact is, though, that there was technically no nationality at the time of “Korean”. Koreans were Japanese then. They fought and lost as Japanese citizens. They collaborated in the comfort woman system, as did their fellow Japanese. If the comfort woman system is considered criminal, then Koreans are accomplices. They switched sides when Japan lost and quickly took the position of victim, hiding their own participation and responsibility.<br /><br />But the time for falsehood and victim politics is over. If Koreans are genuinely concerned with women’s human rights, they should be scrambling to rescue the tens of thousands of Korean women trapped in prostitution all over the world right now. These modern-day victims of human trafficking are at this very moment suffering at the hands of the same vicious brokers whom the Japanese authorities cracked down on in Korea nearly one hundred years ago.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iGLrlHyb53A/Wop4FSBXtII/AAAAAAAAArA/s_uQBc6H7Gc3aToStdS6OKsNoBnQEh7mgCLcBGAs/s1600/image1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iGLrlHyb53A/Wop4FSBXtII/AAAAAAAAArA/s_uQBc6H7Gc3aToStdS6OKsNoBnQEh7mgCLcBGAs/s400/image1.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dJDU15aTAmA/Wop4NRtZSTI/AAAAAAAAArE/INMnwx_FHKk6aYjhFC50p3-L9cXDMMGfwCLcBGAs/s1600/image2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dJDU15aTAmA/Wop4NRtZSTI/AAAAAAAAArE/INMnwx_FHKk6aYjhFC50p3-L9cXDMMGfwCLcBGAs/s400/image2.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-17419073092586188182017-08-02T12:06:00.000+10:002017-08-02T14:10:40.265+10:00Setting the Record Straight: Comfort Women and Compensation<br />The comfort woman system did exist during the World War II. It was built by the Imperial Japanese Army to prevent sexual crimes, STDs, and spying. The similar system was adopted and operated by the South Korean Military Force during the Korea War and the Vietnam War for own soldiers as well as soldiers of allied nations.<br /><br />But the comfort woman system was not the invention of the Japanese military. As Professor Park Yu-ha of Sejong University points out, the comfort women system was a systematization of the commercial prostitution system which already existed at the time. Prof. Park stresses that comfort stations took various forms depending on location and time built.<br /><br />By the same token, there were a variety of women working to serve soldiers. Prof. Park contends that only Japanese women, along with Korean and Taiwanese women who were Japanese at that time and served with a sense of patriotism, should be referred to as “comfort women.” Apart from these women, there were women at ordinary prostitution facilities also engaged in sex work, but not exclusively for the “comfort” of the Japanese military.<br /><br />Women in prostitution were socially weak and vulnerable in general. Some were sold by their parents or deceived by vicious brokers and susceptible to exploitations even if they earned some money under their contracts. Prof. Park argues that Japan’s responsibility for Korean comfort women should be accounted for in its annexation of the Korean Peninsula, which became a source for comfort women. This accounting should be undertaken from a moral standpoint. Conversely, the forcible abduction of women off the streets and from normal households by military forces was hardly plausible, and so there is no need for the Japanese government to apologize for something that did not happen. In other words, the moral reckoning must be grounded in remorse for real actions, and not subsumed to political calculations.<br /><br />Probably the most famous figure brought up as a symbolic victim of the comfort women system is Ms. Jan Ruff-O’Herne who was subjected to a gruesome war crime in Indonesia during World War II. Where do women like Ms. Ruff-O’Herne fit into the whole picture of the comfort women argument?<br /><br />Prof. Park says that the Dutch women such as Ruff-O’Herne, who were forced to provide sex to soldiers, were not comfort women but clearly victims of crimes. The criminal perpetrators were punished as individuals. It is important to clarify this, because it shows, among other things, that the Japanese military, contrary to much of what is now said about the imperial forces, was the first advocate for the safety of the comfort women. <br /><br />Ms Ruff-O’Herne was a victim of a dreadful crime known as the “Semarang Incident” (February 1944), which took place in Indonesia, a colony ruled by the Dutch for 300 years. The Semarang Incident saw the rape and forcible detention of 35 Dutch women by a small group of Japanese Army soldiers and prostitute-brokers.<br /><br />These soldiers and prostitute-brokers violated the strict moral guidelines issued by the administrative office of the 16th regiment of the Japanese Army in Djakarta, Indonesia. They forcibly removed the 35 women, aged 17 to 28, from three Dutch internment camps, confining them in four brothels in Semarang. The soldiers and brokers then raped the women repeatedly, holding them at length against their will.<br /><br />During Colonel Kaoru Odajima’s inspection of the Dutch internment camps, a leader of the Dutch detainees (whose own daughter had been among the abductees) reported coerced human mobilization of Dutch women from camps by some Japanese Army officers and prostitute-brokers. Upon receiving the Dutch leader’s information, Col. Odajima ordered the 16th Army regiment headquarters to immediately release all the abducted Dutch women. Col. Odajima also ordered the closure of the four brothels in Semarang. <br /><br />The eleven perpetrators (soldiers, prostitute-brokers, and brothel-operators) were court-martialed. After the war, the offenders were classified as B and C war criminals during the Batavia War Crimes Temporary Tribunal in 1948. They were found guilty and sentenced. Major Keiji Okada, believed to be responsible for the entire incident, was executed, and the others were imprisoned.<br /><br />Furthermore, Army Colonel Asao Ōkubo, who was believed to be the ringleader of the group, was returned to Japan at the end of WWII. He committed suicide, fearing he would be summoned by the Batavia War Crimes Temporary Tribunal before it was dissolved. Eventually, 25 out of the 35 abducted Dutch women were officially recognized as victims of coercive human mobilization and rape by the Japanese Army soldiers and prostitute-brokers.<br /><br />According to the 1994 report by the Dutch government, there were about 200-300 Dutch women working in brothels in Indonesia during WWII, of which at least 65 were said to be victims of forced prostitution. The others were sex workers. <br /><br />This issue has been resolved between the Netherlands and Japan. The Dutch government officially acknowledged its absolute closure. The Japanese government established the Asian Women’s Fund in 1995 with about $ 4.5 million in order to compensate the victims of these crimes. By 2001, reparations to the Dutch victims had been paid in full, and the cases were closed.<br /><br />Many people criticized the fund due to its being private, and not official. In fact, the fund was supported by the Japanese government with a fiscal injection, but it remained de jure private for the simple fact that all war-related compensation was completed upon the execution of the Peace Treaty in 1952. Many Japanese individuals donated to the fund in order to express their sympathy for what the women suffered in the war. The record of the Asian Women Fund shows that 79 Dutch women received goods and services valued at an average of approximately 50,000 guilders (3 million yen) per person, along with an apology letter from then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. &nbsp;Ms Ruff-O’Herne refused to receive them at her own will.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the comfort women issue—which should be about rendering justice to those who suffered—is no longer about the women themselves. Anti-Japan political activists in East Asia and elsewhere with connections to North Korea and the Chinese Communist Party are now exploiting the comfort women issue for their own ends.<br /><br />As Prof. Park Yu-ha recommends, Japan must make amends for things that actually happened in the past. The record shows that Japan has done this, time and time again. While communist forces attempt to turn the comfort women history into the comfort women political issue, we must refuse to be embroiled in political sidetracking. Justice demands no less.<br /><br /><br />Tetsuhide Yamaoka<br />Researcher<br />The Institute of Moralogy<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Psa9NFBs5BA/WYFMFzsJcXI/AAAAAAAAAk4/OQkNOPnvzgcY5zEJyR4u-utkmJEX4GUZQCLcBGAs/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="400" height="286" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Psa9NFBs5BA/WYFMFzsJcXI/AAAAAAAAAk4/OQkNOPnvzgcY5zEJyR4u-utkmJEX4GUZQCLcBGAs/s400/1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Korean Comfort Women arrested and interviewed by US soldiers in Burma,1944<br />Source: The National Archives of the United States</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iAj0u8ZOOEU/WYFMILkDj5I/AAAAAAAAAlE/am9GlRdD8LERadix2Vdtqab2fQnzmzN5ACEwYBhgL/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="723" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iAj0u8ZOOEU/WYFMILkDj5I/AAAAAAAAAlE/am9GlRdD8LERadix2Vdtqab2fQnzmzN5ACEwYBhgL/s400/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Professor Park Yu-ha<br />Source: The Asahi Shimbun</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GMp1os7sKp4/WYFMJpu1khI/AAAAAAAAAlE/nu4q3edkO-oCfNk3wgpG6-coEvIhRwpSwCEwYBhgL/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="728" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GMp1os7sKp4/WYFMJpu1khI/AAAAAAAAAlE/nu4q3edkO-oCfNk3wgpG6-coEvIhRwpSwCEwYBhgL/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Ms.Jan O’Herne</div><div style="text-align: center;">Source:ABC News</div><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-86647601835924810602017-04-04T17:32:00.002+10:002017-05-09T17:00:11.061+10:00Stop "Comfort Women Statues" and Protect Japanese children and youth in Australia from Racial Discrimination, Bullying and Harassment!<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>AJCN started the following fundraising activities. Please cooperate to protect Japanese children living in Australia.</b></span><br /><br /><b>Donation site:</b> <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/t2nvb" target="_blank">https://www.gofundme.com/t2nvb</a><br /><b>Payment with credit card is accepted on this site. If you would like to transfer directly to an account please transfer to the account below.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>Japan:</b> ゆうちょ銀行（Japan Post Bank) Store Number: 019<br />Deposit Type: Current Account &nbsp;Account Number:0324225 &nbsp;Account Name: AJCN<br /><br /><b>Australia:</b> Commonwealth Bank &nbsp;BSB: 062-246 Account Number:10302121<br />Account Name: AUSTRALIA-JAPAN COMMUNITY NETWORK INCORPORATED<br /><div><br /></div><b><br /></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlJBx3shy6U/WO72ORHtyUI/AAAAAAAAAiw/kgiiKxjTpScSoWYtk2KBTYc9RRr0H3g2QCLcB/s1600/0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="620" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZlJBx3shy6U/WO72ORHtyUI/AAAAAAAAAiw/kgiiKxjTpScSoWYtk2KBTYc9RRr0H3g2QCLcB/s640/0.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><b><br /></b><br /><b>AJCN (Australia-Japan Community Network) </b>has been acting on behalf of Japanese mothers who are concerned about the safety of their children since April 2014 , when we heard about the proposal of the Comfort Women statue in Strathfield. &nbsp;On August 11, 2015, the Strathfield City Council and local residents unanimously rejected the proposal. This decision effectively made it impossible to erect the statue on public land in Australia. Since then, we had to respond to the second campaign to erect the statue led by a South Korean political group that has close connections with North Korea. Despite our effort this time, however, the statue was unveiled in August last year and currently placed at the Uniting Church in Ashfield.<br /><br />Although it is placed on private property of the Uniting Church, it is open to the general public. So on December 14 last year, we lodged our official complaint with the Human Rights Commission based on the Racial Discrimination Law against the national organization of the church and the responsible minister of the local church in Ashfield.<br />There have been cases of Japanese children being bullied and harassed since the erections of such statues in the United States. <b>We also have more and more Japanese people experiencing racial discrimination and harassment in Sydney. The Japanese government took this situation seriously and submitted a letter to the Human Rights Commission via AJCN to express their opinion and concerns regarding this issue.&nbsp;</b><br /><br />AJCN is just a group of mothers and fathers who are wishing to protect peace and harmony of our community. Since all of our activities have been carried out by group member's wallets, this time we cannot bear the full cost of attorneys' fees.<br /><br />To prevent the division of multicultural community in Australia and secure the safe and peaceful life of children and grandchildren, I wish to ask for your support in this fundraising activity .<br /><br />All the donations will be received and managed by AJCN, then it will be released and appropriated for AJCN's activities/operations as required. <br />For the activities of AJCN, please visit the following blog site.<br /><div><br /></div><a href="http://jcnsydney.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">http://jcnsydney.blogspot.com.au/</a><br /><br /><br />April 2017<br />Sumiyo Egawa<br />Secretary-General of AJCN<br /><br /><br />The Japanese government stated the concerns about this issue to the Premiers of NSW twice and requested to take measures.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OgrQ0Fwenfw/WONLkdWXckI/AAAAAAAAAiA/Xxb2TKopSew-zQO0rNvrjLbzMkbL2aLfACEw/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OgrQ0Fwenfw/WONLkdWXckI/AAAAAAAAAiA/Xxb2TKopSew-zQO0rNvrjLbzMkbL2aLfACEw/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hk8CAZT9hWg/WONLlfdL6eI/AAAAAAAAAiE/cX8Fv5-EYrIvRadeR4gu2nJ4e3BdlsZ6QCEw/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hk8CAZT9hWg/WONLlfdL6eI/AAAAAAAAAiE/cX8Fv5-EYrIvRadeR4gu2nJ4e3BdlsZ6QCEw/s320/6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-60324096069465122312017-03-20T12:25:00.000+11:002017-03-27T17:16:40.745+11:00 About Anti-Japan Journalists & Scholars<br />It has been brought to our attention that some journalists and scholars who have strong anti-Japan sentiments are trying to damage AJCN’s reputation by connecting us to a religious group which they consider a "cult" and also to an individual they consider a "racist". &nbsp;We initially thought it did not deserve our comment. However, we decided to officially clarify our position this time because we recently received a call from one journalist working for an Australian TV station and he one-sidedly accused us of associating with them.<br /><br />This journalist rang the Consulate General of Japan in Sydney, and asked, “Does the Consulate General of Japan associate with AJCN, Happy Science and Zaitoku-kai?”<br /><br /><br /><b>Happy Science</b><br /><br />The journalist asked us if we were related to a religious group called Happy Science led by Mr Ryuho Okawa. We assume this allegation stems from the fact that Mr Brian Rycroft, who was the minister of the Happy Science Church in Lane Cove North, NSW at that time, made a speech in the Strathfield Council extraordinary meeting on 11 August 2015 against the comfort woman statue proposed by the anti-Japan Korean activists. It was the council's decision to randomly select speakers from a pool of all applicants.<br /><br />Mr Rycroft contacted us just before the extraordinary meeting to inform us that he would be putting his name in the hat to express his opinion as a resident of Sydney regarding the proposed statue. &nbsp;He contacted us as one of the citizens, not as a representative of the organization. He contacted us to let us know that his participation could reduce the chance of our speakers being selected. &nbsp;We simply respected his motivation and decision to participate in this matter. &nbsp;In the morning of the meeting, his name was selected in the lottery and he made a speech in front of the councilors.<br /><br />Mr. Rycroft and AJCN shared the similar view regarding the statue: we were both opposing the erection of politically motivated statue on our local land. Even though we had never interacted each other before, we were able to exchange our views and opinions on this matter. In fact Happy Science made it clear to us as an organization that they do not want to be regarded as a part of us as they always have their own ways of thinking based on their teachings. We appreciate their opinion on this issue and we feel the same way. I was once interviewed by their monthly magazine editor but it was merely one of the requests I received from various media.<br /><br />The above mentioned Australian journalist asked us, “Don’t you think they (Happy Science) are crazy? Do you welcome them?” &nbsp;Our answer is that we are not concerned with what they believe in. &nbsp;It is nothing to do with our business and we do not criticise other people’s religion unless they conduct anti-social activities.<br /><br /><br /><b>Ms Yumiko Yamamoto of Nadeshiko Action</b><br /><br />We were acquainted with Ms Yamamoto because she posted the information about the Comfort Women statue issue in Strathfield on her website. A local Japanese mother, who read the article on the website, sent messages to Japanese residents in Sydney and I also received her deeply concerned message about the act of the anti-Japan activists. &nbsp;It was the receipt of her email message that prompted us to form the AJCN to help the local Japanese mothers.<br /><br />We overheard that Ms Yamamoto used to be a member of a group called “Zaitoku-Kai” which is a group calling for repeal of alleged special benefits given to Korean residents living in Japan such as reduced municipal tax. For this, the Zaitoku-Kai has been heavily criticized for their use of abusive words against local Korean residents in Tokyo. &nbsp;Ms Yamamoto does not seem to hide the fact that she used to be a member of the group and left for a certain reason.<br /><br />Apparently, some journalists and scholars are accusing us of self-contradicting by associating with Ms Yamamoto whom they consider as an overt racist. The particular journalists criticized us for attending the same conference in February 2016, which meant for them that I, the leader of AJCN, is standing on the same platform with the infamous racist.<br /><br />First of all, AJCN does not agree with Zaitoku-Kai’ s style which is completely opposite to our motto “Non-confrontational rationalism” and we have no contact with them to date. &nbsp;As Ms Yamamoto no longer belongs to the Zaitoku-Kai nor conduct offensive demonstrations herself, we have no reason to confront her now. &nbsp;Once again, just like the case of Happy Science, we can speak to each other on specific local matter that can affect our life in region. The conference which the journalist refers to as an evidence for our connection to Ms Yamamoto was officially attended by 20 speakers including parliamentarians, scholars, and journalists on a topic which had nothing to do with Zaitoku-Kai. &nbsp;Ms Yamamoto and I happened to attend the same conference along with many other people, and clearly it doesn't imply that I'm associated with Zaitoku-Kai at all.<br /><br />It is unprofessional for any journalist to defame somebody by forcibly connecting the person to other parties which are obviously not related to. AJCN’s purpose which has always primarily worked for the protection of local Japanese communities and children’s welfare – not criticising nor confronting people even if we are not in &nbsp;complete agreement unless we have a genuinely compelling reason to do so.<br /><br /><br />Tetsuhide Yamaoka<br />President<br />Australia-Japan Community NetworkJapan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-90098974519597819262017-02-27T19:56:00.001+11:002017-03-07T16:11:44.072+11:00What's truly behind Comfort Women Statues<br /><div style="text-align: right;">2 March, 2017</div><br /><br /><br />As you may know, the diplomatic relationship between Japan and South Korea continues to deteriorate over the "Comfort Women" statue issue: The Japanese Ambassador in South Korea and the Consulate-General of Japan in Busan have been recalled to Japan for over a month now, and the currency swap negotiations have been suspended.<br /><br />After the ABC TV reported "Japanese group launches 18C racial discrimination case over 'comfort women' memorial" (7:30, Dec14,'16), a member of AJCN received a death threat from a person living in South Korea. AJCN reported this case to the local police. They had very serious concerns about the contents and forwarded this matter to the Australian Federal Police as an international political issue for further investigation.<br /><br />The "Comfort Women Statue" issue began in Sydney in February 2014 when the Chinese and Korean alliance called "The United Austral Korean-Chinese Alliance against Japanese War Crimes" held a meeting to announce the ten goals of their anti-Japan lobbying which included their political activities such as "to lobby the Australian Prime Minister to put less importance on foreign diplomatic relationships with Japan" and "to erect the Comfort Women statues in all regions of Australia". Since that time, we have observed various figures of the anti-Japan alliance (and of the associated individuals/ organisations) that took part in endorsing the statue to be erected in Sydney. In this article, I'd like to talk about those figures and the organizations, and explain the "Big Picture" drawn by the Chinese Communist Party behind this "Comfort Women Statue" issue.<br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AWKHy_NpVps/WLz8FDYV9RI/AAAAAAAAAgk/9O30DUB_VL8_BfvvrK7KyfYMDoah5MY6wCLcB/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AWKHy_NpVps/WLz8FDYV9RI/AAAAAAAAAgk/9O30DUB_VL8_BfvvrK7KyfYMDoah5MY6wCLcB/s400/4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">(The above photo from the article “Korean and Chinese communities formed an alliance to erect "comfort women" statues in Australia”, Feb '14, Yonhap News, S.Korea)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><h3><u>1. The first movement for erecting the Comfort Women statue&nbsp;</u></h3>(The proposal for the erection was rejected by Strathfield City Council on August 11, 2015)<br />The organization that submitted a proposal to erect a Comfort Women statue in the square in front of Strathfield Station is an anti-Japanese organization called KACA (The Korean Committee of United Austral Korean-Chinese Alliance against Japanese<br />War Crimes).<br />In September 2014 issue of the "Journal of the Korean Society of Sydney", KACA posted a totally political declaration called “The Eight Objectives”. In it KACA stated that it would work for the interest of Korea and China. When Japanese Prime Minister Abe visited Australia in July 2014, KACA disseminated an open letter to parliamentarians, state councils and the media, criticizing the Japanese government and demonstrated in front of the National Assembly in Canberra.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hQQGEWeyCMk/WLz63t0de8I/AAAAAAAAAgc/bdixqMCSiO4DKeE9jSOFCSEoshwA0I8FgCEw/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hQQGEWeyCMk/WLz63t0de8I/AAAAAAAAAgc/bdixqMCSiO4DKeE9jSOFCSEoshwA0I8FgCEw/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">(Mr.Ok speaking with Mr. Song standing by his side, taking part in an anti-Japan demonstration in Canberra, July 2014)</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Mr. Sang Ok, the Deputy Mayor of Strathfield at the time, was the chairman of KACA.<br />In 2015 he was replaced by Mr. Luke Song, the former chairman of KSSA (Korean Society of Sydney, Australia). Mr. Luke Song wrote several extreme hate comments on<br />KSSA’s website regarding the Abe cabinet and the Japanese Australian residents while he was the chairman of KSSA.<br />Mr. Song insists that the proposed statue was only to enhance woman’s human rights.<br />Nonetheless, he used language such as “destroy Shinzo Abe and the Japanese who are dreaming of reviving militarism” and “we are fighting against our enemy to end our sad history”. These strong aggressive words and statements are very common from all the anti-Japan Chinese Korean alliance groups around the world .<br /><br />In September 2014 they released their mission statement in a Korean newspaper in Sydney in which they stated the following:<br /><br />"We will urge the US government not to be deceived by Japan, acknowledge the dark evil intention of Prime Minister Abe, stop remilitarization of Japan and change their foreign policies that put Japan first before Korea and China."<br /><br />"Three Sisters", the Comfort Woman statue, which was proposed to be erected in Strathfield was designed by a Chinese artist and allegedly the cost of the production was to be born by the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party.<br /><br />In this worldwide anti-Japan lobbying, which the erections of the Comfort Women statues are a part of, the anti-Japanese Korean group is said to be just a glove and the hand inside that moves this glove is the CCP.<br /><br /><br /><h3><u>2. The second movement for erecting Comfort Women statues&nbsp;</u></h3>The trigger for beginning stage two of this campaign of erecting comfort women statues was the agreement made between the Japanese and Korean governments to finally settle the Comfort Women issue on December 28, 2015.<br />“Chong Dae Hyup”, an anti-Japan political group which is closely related to North Korea, opposed this governmental agreement and began their monthly Wednesday<br />demonstrations all over the world. In response to this, FCWA (Friends of Comfort Women in Australia) and Project Group Sysochu (Peace Statue Establishing Committee in Sydney), were formed in Sydney and they started monthly Wednesday demonstrations in Sydney and Brisbane. Many of the members of the two groups, however, are the same people and they really are just one organization. This includes members belonging to existing organizations such as KACA, The Korean Cultural Center Inc. and KSSA.<br /><br />Although Mr. Luke Song, Chairperson of KACA appeared to disappear from the scene following his failure to erect the statue in Strathfield, he consequently visited the Uniting Church in Ashfield on 22 February 2016 with FCWA to discuss with Rev. Crews about relocating the statue to the Uniting Church ground.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pdiF95Lh6Nk/WLz9zB9ZFLI/AAAAAAAAAgw/zC8UNxPTNYI4zv-Yj-WohdV9HyqT7x_IwCLcB/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pdiF95Lh6Nk/WLz9zB9ZFLI/AAAAAAAAAgw/zC8UNxPTNYI4zv-Yj-WohdV9HyqT7x_IwCLcB/s400/5.jpg" width="342" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">(The above photo from the FCWA blog article.)</span></td></tr></tbody></table>The purpose of this anti-Japan activist group is to tear down the Japan-ROK agreement, and demand the Japanese government pay even greater reparations to ex-Comfort Women.<br /><br />The preparatory work to erect the statue was sponsored and carried out under the direction of Chong Dae Hyup. On August 6, 2016 KSSA held an unveiling ceremony of the statue on their leased premises breaching their conditions imposed by the local council as such public displays of banners and the use of the car park were prohibited.<br />The statue was immediately moved to the Uniting Church Ashfield following the conclusion of the ceremony.<br />Please see below further information regarding the people involved, who attended the unveiling ceremony last year.<br /> <br /><br />1) <u>Chong Dae Hyup and its leader, Ms. Yun Mi-Hyang</u><br />The main player who brought the statue to the Uniting Church in Ashfield was Chong Dae Hyup. At the initiative of Chong Dae Hyup, the campaign activities were carried out by young Koreans holding working holiday visas and student visas, Below are members of FCWA who met with the chairperson, Ms.Yun Mi-Hyang at the headquarters office of Chong Dae Hyup in Seoul in June 2016.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yTcV3ttlTi4/WLPppHS_VUI/AAAAAAAAAfc/1BVzZnAM3GY233o3zb5jLiG8CWFN4MbYwCLcB/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yTcV3ttlTi4/WLPppHS_VUI/AAAAAAAAAfc/1BVzZnAM3GY233o3zb5jLiG8CWFN4MbYwCLcB/s400/1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />In the inscription next to the statue placed at the Ashfield Uniting Church, it is clearly stated that the sponsors are Chong Dae Hyup, Seongnam city and voluntary Korean residents in Australia.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LsgSFKfpg98/WLPpiaJDLCI/AAAAAAAAAfY/44zA1SFEULk9SudqQOZ3gPeC3He0rujLQCLcB/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="347" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LsgSFKfpg98/WLPpiaJDLCI/AAAAAAAAAfY/44zA1SFEULk9SudqQOZ3gPeC3He0rujLQCLcB/s400/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Now, continuing their political activities to overthrow the President Park administration in order to establish a new government supporting North Korea’s Kim dynasty regime, Chong Dae Hyup has already produced about thirty statues. They are selling those statues for approximately $30,000 each to local Korean sponsors.<br />The statue that sits in the grounds of the Ashfield Uniting Church is one of them.<br /><br />Ms.Yun Mi-Hyang attended the unveiling ceremony in Sydney. Her relatives and many members of Chong Dae Hyup have been arrested in South Korea due to spy charges in connection with North Korea.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z1ehD3acIlw/WLPpZ4fDe-I/AAAAAAAAAfU/uaK837q__6guK6Z2DWm-c_ddW71y4OLswCLcB/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z1ehD3acIlw/WLPpZ4fDe-I/AAAAAAAAAfU/uaK837q__6guK6Z2DWm-c_ddW71y4OLswCLcB/s640/3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />2) <u>Mr. Lee Jae-Myung</u><br />Mr. Lee Jae-Myung, who is one of the candidates for the upcoming presidential elections, is nicknamed "Korean Trump” in South Korea due to his extreme remarks. In his statements regarding North Korea, he offered to "meet unconditionally with Kim Jongun" and said that "Japan should be considered a military foe". He is the Mayor of Seongnam city, that sponsored the Comfort Women Statue in Ashfield. When he attended the unveiling ceremony in Sydney, he insulted the late Japanese Emperor by calling him “Hirohito” and condemned him as a war criminal. Then he stressed that the erection of the statue was a political issue and related to the pride of the state.<br /> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-79peH6Xp5M4/WLPpS6O-jzI/AAAAAAAAAfQ/CiXPoaCmDAE6rmXMCRrMdVCz7htGpgDYwCLcB/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-79peH6Xp5M4/WLPpS6O-jzI/AAAAAAAAAfQ/CiXPoaCmDAE6rmXMCRrMdVCz7htGpgDYwCLcB/s400/4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />All candidates in the presidential election race have declared that they will abandon the Japan-Korea agreement and renegotiate with the Japanese government.<br /><br />If the next Korean president is significantly pro-North Korea, unification under the federal system with North Korea will be considered. If the US led by President Trump does not strongly control the movement of South Korea, South Korea is likely to move towards unification with North Korea under the guidance of China. It is only a matter of time before North Korea swallows South Korea turning the whole Korean peninsula one communist country. Once South Korea falls under the communist regime, many Koreans already accustomed to democracy will escape overseas. The wealthier people will go to Canada, the United States and Australia, and the poorer will become refugees fleeing by boat to Japan crossing the Sea of Japan.<br /><br /><br />3) <u>Rev. Bill Cews</u><br />Rev. Crews is the minister of the Uniting Church in Ashfield and representative of the charitable organization, Exodus Foundation. Regrettably he played a very disturbing role in regards to the Comfort Women statue in Sydney.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GV9PpNaqPDE/WLPpLzbf-DI/AAAAAAAAAfM/dFDlR4Jq-2UwJpT4OFKyobGt2Rp2b1YVQCLcB/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GV9PpNaqPDE/WLPpLzbf-DI/AAAAAAAAAfM/dFDlR4Jq-2UwJpT4OFKyobGt2Rp2b1YVQCLcB/s400/5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />In the interview conducted by FCWA , he declared that he would erect a Comfort Women statue on his church land in order to make the "perpetrators" apologize in public as he was outraged when he heard Strathfield council had rejected the proposal about the statue.<br />AJCN clearly explained to him that the Korean government ran its own Comfort Women system during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. We provided him with wide<br />ranging information that the Korean troops raped and slaughtered a large number of Vietnamese women and asked him how he would deal with these facts, but he accused only Japan and the Japanese as "perpetrators" in his statements in public. Since the Uniting Church in Australia and Rev. Crews didn't respond to our concerns at all, AJCN had no choice but to lodge a complaint to the Human Rights Commission. In response to our complaint, Rev. Crews told the media, “I just find it outrageous ... bring it on. If I change the location of the statue, I will just put it in a more prominent place.” We are not sure why he is so one-sided, close-minded and aggressive towards us. His aggressive comments in the media upset some Christian Australians and they sent us many messages of support.<br /><br />He does not pay any homage to the fact that more than 70% of Strathfield citizens opposed the erection of the Comfort Woman statue in the survey conducted by the city.<br />He completely ignores actual current problems in the community such as division, bullying, discrimination, and illegal prostitution and sex-trafficking of Korean nationals.<br />He does not hear any concerns expressed by many people around him including the members of his own church. The Uniting Church in Australia paid compensation of 2<br />million dollars to the victims of sexual abuse by its clergies in 2013. Shouldn't he be more interested in erecting a memorial statue for those victims rather than a politically motivated statue supported by the N.Korean, S.Korean and the Chinese interest groups?<br /><br />Lastly we have faith that at some point in the hopefully not too distant future some section of the Australian media will undertake some comprehensive investigative journalism to undercover the why, who and what is really behind all this antagonism and the lengths that these people are willing to go to, to achieve their goals for it is truly frightening.<br /><br />Sumiyo Egawa<br />Secretary-General<br />Australia-Japan Community Network<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-30952908097935596702017-01-13T19:07:00.003+11:002017-01-14T02:57:33.785+11:00Comfort Woman Statue – After all insult and aggression<br><br>Press Release<br><br><div style="text-align: right;">12 January 2017&nbsp;</div><br><br><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Comfort Woman Statue – After all insult and aggression&nbsp;</span></h2><br><br>Everybody would know by now what happened in Busan, South Korea. &nbsp;Another comfort woman statue was erected right in front of the Japanese Consulate by Korean activists despite the governmental agreement to settle this matter and move on and despite the fact that the majority of former comfort women supported the agreement and already received compensation. Japan has made efforts to settle the matter many times in the past. Whoever is in power in the Korean government each time made promises that they would never bring the matter up again only to break the promise over and over again. <br><br>Whatever justifications are given by those Korean activists and the South Korean Government, the reality is that the statue is always followed by insults and aggression towards Japanese.<br><br><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qLS3GfzDWl4/WHiJb4QiQGI/AAAAAAAAAdc/vhHiJk1xvy4tPTG3KVh8TR4QDMMbc0RswCLcB/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qLS3GfzDWl4/WHiJb4QiQGI/AAAAAAAAAdc/vhHiJk1xvy4tPTG3KVh8TR4QDMMbc0RswCLcB/s1600/1.jpg"></a></div>It is not peaceful commemoration. The South Korean Government does not bother with its obligations under the governmental agreement and they are even asking the Japanese Government to resolve the matter with the activists directly rather than enforce their own laws. &nbsp;We are still surprised that they are breaching the agreement after receiving the reparation money and giving it to most of the former comfort women. &nbsp; <br><br>Their aggression does not stop here. &nbsp;Lee Jaemyung, mayor of a city near Seoul called Seongnam who is nicknamed as Korean Trump is accusing President Pak of spying for Japan and publicly stating that he considers Japan is a military foe. &nbsp;We know that he came all the way to Sydney for the unveiling ceremony of the comfort woman statue now sitting in the car park of the Uniting &nbsp; Church and accused the Japanese Emperor of being a “War Criminal”.<br><div><br></div><br><br><br><br><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--1h0uaanMlU/WHiKEclDAXI/AAAAAAAAAdk/AlXu2wb4PVYGfYTsX4HQZHhHb6hbYzz3ACLcB/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="338" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--1h0uaanMlU/WHiKEclDAXI/AAAAAAAAAdk/AlXu2wb4PVYGfYTsX4HQZHhHb6hbYzz3ACLcB/s640/2.jpg" width="640"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Mr Lee Jae-myung in Sydney considers Japan as South Korea’s immediate Military Foe.</td></tr></tbody></table><br>Enough is enough. &nbsp;We don’t want this kind of thing imported into our local community in Australia. &nbsp;It is known that those activists in Sydney and Busan are controlled by Chon Dea Hyup which is officially recognized by the South Korean Government as a North Korean connected agency. &nbsp;Their purpose is to break the governmental agreement and cause animosity as much as possible and so they don't listen to our concerns.<br><br>We are concerned about the extremely offensive behaviours always associated with the statue. &nbsp;We firmly believe that all &nbsp;migrants should accept Australian values once they decide to migrate here and that includes living in harmony with people from other countries, even countries who were once at war. &nbsp;<br><br>This is absolutely not a peaceful commemoration of all the women who suffered in war as well as women suffering from domestic violence as Rev Crews insists. &nbsp;As shown in Busan, the comfort woman statues have a political purpose, and they foment antiJapanese sentiment amongst local Korean communities with a very negative impact on us.<br><br><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: justify; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Meanwhile AJCN received a threatening email from a person living in South Korea who wants to kill us in the most cruel way and see us dying begging for life. &nbsp;We are reporting this matter to police.</span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: justify; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: justify; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div> <br>Tetsuhide Yamaoka <br>President<br>Australia-Japan Community Network<br><br><br><br>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-79415306212943049602017-01-03T11:42:00.002+11:002017-01-03T11:42:56.417+11:00Andrew Bolt’s article about AJCN<br />Press Release<br /><div style="text-align: right;">28 December 2016</div><br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Andrew Bolt’s article about AJCN</span></h2><br /><br />Articles in the Sun Herald (December 15, 2016/ Title: Now Japanese use our race law against a war memorial) and The Australian newspapers (December 19,2016 / Title: ’Comfort Women’ row shows absurdity of 18C) which attack the section 18C complaint brought by AJCN, miss the point. This has nothing to do with the great monuments to peace and remembrance of Australia's war dead, which Australian war memorials are. &nbsp;It has nothing to do with debates between Koreans and Japanese about their wartime history.<br /><br />Japanese Australians are feeling intimidated and humiliated by the display of the comfort women statue, as it singles Japanese out as perpetrators of shameful conduct towards women in wartime, of all the peoples who call Australia home. &nbsp;This has been done deliberately. &nbsp;We know this from the wording of the plaque accompanying the statue and the public statements made by Rev Crews before the media spotlight has fallen on the case. &nbsp;He said he did it to make "the perpetrators" - being the Japanese – apologise in a video posted over the internet in April. He also said he did it out of a sense of outrage about the decision of Strathfield Council not to permit the exhibition of the statue at the public place, on similar grounds to our present complaint. &nbsp;The statue was never exhibited in a good faith.<br /><br />Naturally Japanese in Australia are offended and insulted by being singled out, alone amongst the people of the world, as perpetrators of sexual violence towards women during wartime.<br /><br />We have been expressing our concerns to the Uniting Church since June. Rev Crews now says the statue is to help us all contemplate the lamentable scourge of sexual violence towards women in all wars, and even those women suffering domestic violence in today’s society. &nbsp;So we have said to Rev Crews of the Uniting Church - make the message universal on the accompanying plaque, to match your own words as to what you say it commemorates. In its present form, it is causing fear in Japanese people based on their race.<br /><br />We think the Uniting Church did not realise how comfort women statues abroad have been used as focal points for the racial abuse of Japanese people today, or to educate young people to hate Japanese people although we explained with many examples of those cases really happening. &nbsp;We are very aware of that and we are doing everything we can to stop such practices being imported here. This past experience naturally makes us wary about the true motivations of those who imported the statue to Australia, and vigilant to protect ourselves from similar abuse here.<br /><br />We have great hopes for the conciliation process at the HRC that the leadership of the Uniting Church will work with us to find a compromise. Let us all remember the female victims of war; there is no need to treat us Japanese living in Australia differently as we do so.<br /><br /><br />Tetsuhide Yamaoka<br />President<br />Australia-Japan Community Network<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-38333712032030788212016-12-21T15:50:00.000+11:002017-01-03T12:01:53.434+11:00Australia: Korean Puppets are stalking JapaneseMr. Michael Yon, a prominent journalist and familiar with the Comfort Women issue, posted an article on Facebook.<br /><br />He traveled &nbsp;around the world to investigate the issue of Comfort Women and plans to release the book regarding to this issue soon. &nbsp;He visited also Australia last year, meeting with government officials and AJCN members.<br />Hence he is very knowledgeable about the Comfort Women issue in Australia as well. As a result of his survey, he realized there are<br />Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party behind the Comfort Women issue and Koreans are only puppets in a big picture drawn by Chinese Communists Party<br /><br />It is said that Chinese Communists Party uses Comfort Women issue as a political tool utilizing the hatred sentiment of Koreans against Japan, and that the ultimate objective of China is the division of US,Japan, Australia, Southeast Asian democratic countries, and democratic countries in Far East.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10154179176720665" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10154179176720665</a></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Australia: Korean Puppets are stalking Japanese</span></h2><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div>For over two years now, I have written about the Comfort Women scam. There are many aspects to the scam. At the very highest level, there is China trying to make Koreans, Americans, and Japanese mistrust and fight each other. It is working on Koreans.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Long story short, the Chinese puppet masters in Beijing deeply understand the Korean psyche. They realize that Koreans carry something called blood libel, or blood hate.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>First one must understand something about hatred. Hatred is a compound emotion consisting of two primary emotions. Those two emotions are ANGER and DISGUST. (There are seven primary emotions – as in primary colors, all the rest of the emotions are based on a mixture of the first seven.)</div><div><br /></div><div>So, as a writer, if I want a reader to hate someone, first I must evoke disgust, and then anger (or the inverse), and nature will take it from there. It’s that simple.</div><div><br /></div><div>Disgust normally has a very short half-life. We might be extremely disgusted by something today, and over it just hours or maybe days later.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Anger can have a longer half-life, but still anger normally dissipates quickly. I have at times felt a serious flash of anger, but within a minute it is under control, and within just a couple minutes can literally be gone.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>For instance, both Clinton and Trump disgust me, but I have never been angry with them, so I have no hatred for them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hatred is extremely powerful, and persistent.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>The half-life can be in the generations, or even centuries. This is where blood hate arrives. If two men deeply hate each other, they might teach their children to hate the other family. Now we have a hate-tornado going that ripples through the ages.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some cultures hang onto and nurture hatred. We see that with Black Lives Madness in the USA.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>We see it often with Koreans, and many sorts of Arabs (Arab being difficult to define). Scottish are famous for feuds. English less so – English are good at letting things go.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Japanese as a people have a magical way of not carrying hatred or blood feuds, otherwise they would be blowing us up all around the world.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Middle East is a cauldron of so many blood feuds that nobody is smart enough to track them all.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Chinese realize that Korean culture nurtures blood feuds. Look at North and South Korea. They would love to nuke each other if they could get away with it. (Not that ROK has nukes.)&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>So the Chinese puppet masters manipulate the Koreans and fan that hatred.</div><div><br /></div><div>Earlier this year, I was in Nanjing researching this topic. I visited the massacre museum. That museum is a masterpiece of hate-building. It is incredible.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>If by the time you leave that museum, you do not hate Japanese, you have no soul. (Unless you are someone who realizes what is going on.)&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Conversely, I was also at the Flying Tigers Museum in Kunming. If by the time a person leaves the Flying Tigers Museum, if she does not love or at least feel warm for Americans, she has no heart.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>The Flying Tigers Museum makes our elders look so great that I was almost embarrassed. I could not have designed a better piece of pro-American propaganda. And this is in China, now. Then the Flying Tigers rugby team invited me to see them play! In China! Incredible, but I digress.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, the Chinese are playing the natural fault lines. This is unconventional warfare 101.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Others have spent much effort doing the same with us in America, trying to make whites and blacks hate each other. (It works for some, but not for most of us.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I also flew to Australia researching this. I was told by an Australian government official that many Koreans want nothing to do with this fight. They either like Japanese, are neutral, or he also said some Koreans are big into prostitution in Australia and do not want the bright light.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have spoken with many Japanese mothers. They are concerned that Korean students will go to violence.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Some violence already is occurring, such as recent bombing and arson attacks in Japan. Some Koreans were just arrested for this, I think less than a week ago.</div><div><br /></div><div>But now, when Japanese have to push back, this plays into the hands of the hate machine.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Outsiders who do not realize what is happening often say, “Look at those dirty Japanese! Why don’t they apologize!” (They have apologized, many times, many years ago, and sometimes they apologize for things they did not do.)</div><div><br /></div><div>So that is it in a nutshell. I could go on with 500 pages of detail and supporting documents and interviews, but in a nutshell the Chinese puppet masters are playing emotional Koreans as useful idiots.</div><div><br /></div><div>Press release from a good Japanese organization in Australia. I spent much time with them. They are good people just trying to raise their kids:</div><div><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10154179176720665" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/posts/10154179176720665</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0px;"><br /></div></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-89108497394851306702016-12-19T13:54:00.000+11:002016-12-20T11:58:35.722+11:00Why do Korean children bully Japanese children?<br /><br />Press Release<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">19 December 2016</div><br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Why do Korean children bully Japanese children?</span></h2><br /><br />Some journalists asked me if I would agree that the comfort woman statue itself could cause no harm. &nbsp; Unfortunately the innocent looking girl is designed to be the symbol of Korean anti-Japan sentiment. &nbsp;Her extremely young appearance is to suggest that such a young child was used as a sex slave by the Japanese military. &nbsp;Korean teachers take their young students to the statue and teach them their version of the history.<br /><br /><br /><br />As a result of the anti-Japan education, not only in South Korea but also in other countries, young Korean children grow up believing the comfort woman abduction story, and their anti-Japan behaviour is often encouraged and praised by their teachers and parents as you can see in this picture taken at a train station in South Korea.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xZ0hyLhYG9s/WFdKaGU2zdI/AAAAAAAAAcM/H53LAO1XhnEk5jFsMjBKVghEQtZCzeuswCLcB/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xZ0hyLhYG9s/WFdKaGU2zdI/AAAAAAAAAcM/H53LAO1XhnEk5jFsMjBKVghEQtZCzeuswCLcB/s640/1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Here is another example of such children. They created a YouTube movie which includes a scene of a Japanese soldier, acted by a Korean student, killing a comfort woman, acted by another Korean student, by stabbing followed by a close shot of a hand with pouring blood.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uicdRsUoD6s" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uicdRsUoD6s" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uicdRsUoD6s</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: white; border-bottom: 1pt dotted rgb(200, 200, 200); border-left: none; border-right: none; border-top: 1pt dotted rgb(200, 200, 200); width: 419px;"><tbody><tr><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" valign="top"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l6rV2FoCxk8/WFdK4uRtQvI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/0Z-DwX6OzzEfpZDsI3Rme2G_iHwQeSHZgCLcB/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l6rV2FoCxk8/WFdK4uRtQvI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/0Z-DwX6OzzEfpZDsI3Rme2G_iHwQeSHZgCLcB/s320/2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 11.05pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uicdRsUoD6s" target="_blank"><span lang="JA" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none;">위안부</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none;">&nbsp;5 - Comfort Women 5(Claire Lilienthal School 2016 UCC Contest 6th graders)</span></a></span><span style="color: #0078d7; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 11.05pt;"><br /></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.4pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">www.youtube.com</span></a></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 10.5pt;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">Sydney Lee (</span><span lang="JA" style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">리나</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">), Jino Chung (</span><span lang="JA" style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">진오</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">), Simone Willets (</span><span lang="JA" style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">앵두</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">), Noah Wise (</span><span lang="JA" style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">다현</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">), Sebastian Chai (</span><span lang="JA" style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">세비</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">), Devin Dunnigan (</span><span lang="JA" style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;gulim&quot; , serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">데빈</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;meiryo ui&quot;; font-size: 7.5pt;">)<o:p></o:p></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />This kind of story is no longer believed in Japan as the Asahi Newspaper, which disseminated the fabricated abduction story originally, admitted it was a fictitious story created by a con man called Seiji Yoshida. &nbsp; But the story remains in Korean children's mind due to the anti-Japan education prevailing in Korean societies and they instinctively spit at Japanese counterparts and demand them to apologize. &nbsp; Now Japanese people have begun experiencing similar bullying and intimidation in Australia since the comfort women statue became an issue here and this is what the local mothers are worried about.<br /><br /><br /><br />This is the fundamental difference between ANZAC monuments and comfort woman statues. &nbsp; Australian children learning history are never taught to hate former enemy countries and their descendants. &nbsp;Unfortunately this is not the case with the comfort women statues, and so we are forced to defend our families from this kind of racial intimidation as best we can.<br /><br /><br /><br />Accordingly it is impossible for us to consider the comfort woman statue as a statue that symbolises all women who suffered in war as Rev Crews insists. &nbsp;The statue is never free from the intention and the motivation of the people who created and erected it. &nbsp;The plaques that accompany the statue clearly accuse only the Japanese during World War II and there is no mention of the suffering of any other people forced into prostitution during wars, including for example comfort women during the Korean War and Vietnamese War under the South Korean government’s own military prostitution programme. &nbsp;It is always important to learn from the past but we have to teach our children to positively construct the future as well.<br /><br /><br /><br />This is not about dispute over historical facts. &nbsp;Everyone can have his/her own view. &nbsp;Yet we must refrain from threatening and adversely affecting other ethnic communities. &nbsp;There are many cross cultural families in Australia. They are all worried about the safety of their children.<br /><br /><br /><br />We would like the Uniting Church to rewrite the plaques according to what Rev Crews says himself and house the statue somewhere inside, more private and discreet to minimize the risk of adversely affecting the local communities. &nbsp;Korean people can visit the statue commemorating women suffered in war in peace without offensive demonstrations. &nbsp;This is rather a simple and reasonable request.<br /><br /><br /><br />If you wish to further investigate this issue, please read the articles below:<br /><br />“Comfort women articles by scholars “<br /><a href="http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/the-comfort-women-by-chunghee-sarah-soh.html" target="_blank">http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/the-comfort-women-by-chunghee-sarah-soh.html</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Tetsuhide Yamaoka<br /><br /><br /><br />President<br /><br />Australia-Japan Community Network<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-44064237700951253112016-12-16T19:59:00.001+11:002016-12-16T19:59:53.329+11:00Comfort Woman Statue causing racial bullying to Japanese children<br />Media Release<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">15 December 2016&nbsp;</div><br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Comfort Woman Statue causing racial bullying to Japanese children&nbsp;</span></h2><br />We release this statement to further clarify our position on this matter.<br /><br />We received a couple of emails accusing us of using the 18C to challenge the historical facts and whitewash atrocities. &nbsp;We restate the following.<br /><br />War ended a long time ago. &nbsp;Everything was legally settled and we moved on. &nbsp;Everybody can have own views and interpretation over historical events. &nbsp;We should be sensitive towards any traumas people carry on. &nbsp;However we must make sure our local communities are kept in harmony. &nbsp;We should refrain from using history to achieve political goals. &nbsp;We stress again that young children are far more susceptible to racial hatred.<br /><br />We hear from worried and distressed parents especially from North America where such statues were already erected and political demonstrations continuously take place.<br /><br />Typical cases:<br /><br />•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Korean children surround a Japanese child and force him/her to apologize.<br />•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Korean children spit at Japanese children and/or spit over lunch boxes of Japanese children.<br />•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Korean children tell Japanese children “Japanese are evil race.”<br /><br />Those Korean children think it is OK to do so watching what their parents say and do.<br /><br /><br />One case from Strathfield, NSW in 2015.<br /><br />A Korean boy told his Japanese best friend “Let’s stay friends no matter what adults say and do.”<br /><br /><br />Another case in Sydney CBD<br /><br />A Japanese mother visited a Korean own Japanese restaurant in Sydney CBD. Her half Australian daughter was served a boiling water in a cup with a straw. &nbsp;As she burnt her throat and started crying the mother asked workers at the restaurant to give her water but she was ignored for a long time and she had to push very hard.<br /><br /><br />We must not allow this to happen in our local communities and&nbsp;<span style="color: blue;"><b>we explained this in detail to the Uniting Church asking their cooperation but they did nothing merely saying “The statue is not targeting the Japanese.” &nbsp;Such an attitude is totally irresponsible and we consider it culpable being a religious organization supposed to work for everyone’s welfare.</b></span><br /><br />Accordingly we are forced to take a formal action. &nbsp;It is a basic instinct of parents to protect their children. &nbsp;AJCN is committed to support them. &nbsp;We can always talk about historical interpretations but that is a separate matter. &nbsp;Hence 18C is considered relevant in this case. &nbsp;Please also refer to the attached bullying cases reported by a Japanese scholar who visited local Japanese parents in North America.<br /><br /><br />Best regards<br />Tetsuhide Yamaoka<br />President<br />Australia-Japan Community Network<br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-31689754524742250462016-12-16T19:48:00.000+11:002016-12-16T19:48:22.550+11:00About the Comfort Woman StatueMedia Release<br /><div style="text-align: right;">14 December 2016</div><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">About the Comfort Woman Statue</span></h2><br /><br />As ABC reported AJCN has lodged a complaint against Uniting Church Australia at Human Right Commission.<br /><br />Completely apart from interpretation of historical facts we have a numerous number of reasons to believe this statue has been promoted as a political tool causing unnecessary animosity and division to local communities. For this reason, Strathfield Council unanimously declined the Korean proposal in 2015 as more than 70% of residents voted No to the statue. More recently, Friedburg in Germany declined the similar proposal having realised that the statue is used as a political tool to put pressure on the Japanese government.<br />This kind of statues have been erected all over the world, and demonstrations taking place beside the statues are clearly political, racial and often violent. We consider this is a huge intimidation to the Japanese nationals. Please see the photos below for your references. What further concerns us is the fact that those specific Korean people promoting the statue are trying to break the governmental mutual agreement proposed by both Japanese and the South Korean governments. This agreement is implemented with the aim to provide assistance to the families of deceased comfort women and surviving comfort women, and Australian government officially announced that they also support this agreement as well. We hardly understand why we cannot let the two governments settle and build a better relationship for the future. This statue is a clear symbol with the intention of disregarding the governmental agreement.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TugAL0GJV1M/WFOfMly0qmI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/Jl3Yp2l4_b8qQ3H90iYnXiEtL6STkREwgCLcB/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TugAL0GJV1M/WFOfMly0qmI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/Jl3Yp2l4_b8qQ3H90iYnXiEtL6STkREwgCLcB/s640/1.jpg" width="632" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;"><b>Mr Abe beheaded beside the statue. Photography taken in South Korea</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oLmfue7JtmM/WFOf0v7WQSI/AAAAAAAAAbU/3Xge8JD3Y-UbeEBcPAe5TqeZu3Vu14-gwCLcB/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oLmfue7JtmM/WFOf0v7WQSI/AAAAAAAAAbU/3Xge8JD3Y-UbeEBcPAe5TqeZu3Vu14-gwCLcB/s640/2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;">One of the ceremonies held in the U.S. to promote the “comfort women” statue.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table>Another point is that, we realised young children are naturally susceptible to racial hatred. We are deeply shocked by the fact that small children in South Korea are educated that Japan is an evil at a very young age in their Anti-Japan education system. The following photos are showing drawings by young Korean children which were displayed at a subway station outside Seoul.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ISdMJxKhlCY/WFOlfaphogI/AAAAAAAAAbo/Byv9OTTpnb8Ihbby6h6R07TFhNjqqENvwCLcB/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ISdMJxKhlCY/WFOlfaphogI/AAAAAAAAAbo/Byv9OTTpnb8Ihbby6h6R07TFhNjqqENvwCLcB/s640/3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />We are frightened to see this kind of hatred has been publically displayed at the place of train station.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4UeO4N1rmQM/WFOnK25g2qI/AAAAAAAAAb0/4OvtA9_zhIoVfFgUbOH2HxuWiQzM2QKMgCEw/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4UeO4N1rmQM/WFOnK25g2qI/AAAAAAAAAb0/4OvtA9_zhIoVfFgUbOH2HxuWiQzM2QKMgCEw/s320/4.jpg" width="320" /></a>&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XRoua_4l2ko/WFOnMUzO9gI/AAAAAAAAAb4/SaGOe-24lRE7LD17RzWa5qb_X8zNggViQCEw/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XRoua_4l2ko/WFOnMUzO9gI/AAAAAAAAAb4/SaGOe-24lRE7LD17RzWa5qb_X8zNggViQCEw/s320/5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">&nbsp;These are placards held up by Korean and Chinese supporters at Strathfield extraordinary council meeting on 11th August 2015. These placards clearly indicate that this issue is far beyond peaceful, but strongly political.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Because of the factors described above, the comfort woman statue has never been a peaceful monument. It can easily trigger racial hatred and provoke discrimination especially amongst young children and student. In 2014, parents who are concerned with particular bullying and hatred their children experienced have sent a letter to Prime Minister Abe asking for a help. This happened in North America and we can easily assume this can happen in Australia, and this is the reason we have been objecting to the erection of statue since 2014. We must avoid it by all means.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In last 6 months we have been explaining these in detail to Rev Bill Crews and the Uniting Church at numerous occasions, however, so far our concerns have been flatly ignored. Hence we are forced to take a more formal action.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">What Rev Crews publicly stated also hightens our fear. In a video Korean group submitted online, he appeared and said that he wants to erect the statue facing the public roads to make “perpetrators apologise.” We believe there are no perpetrators in Ashfield in regards to this issue and we are deeply shocked by being called “<b>perpetrators</b>”.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Later Rev Crews changed his words and stated in public that this statue was “representing not only comfort women but also all the women suffered in war, and even those women suffering domestic violence in today’s society.” We see this as an extremely deceptive and misleading act because the plaques attached to the statue are specifically blaming only Japan. This is clearly a form of racial discrimination by singling out the Japanese race.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The comfort woman issue and suffering of women in war is a universal issue that we should all seriously consider about it. However, it does not make sense if today’s mothers and children are subjected to racial hatred and discrimination because of such statue to honor women. Please let us say that we are only working for local parents who have been sensing tension and animosity since this matter was raised by the Korean group in 2014. We respect freedom of speech and thoughts, but we are also committed to protect our children and also maintain our local community harmony. This is the only thing what we are pursuing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We would like the statue to be kept somewhere private and discreet so that people who are interested can visit but still we can minimise the risk of causing unnecessary harm to the local community which we should value the most. This should be a fair request.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Our message to fellow Australians is;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>The world is increasing complex and turbulent. Our challenge is how to avoid importing foreign conflicts into Australia. For that purpose, the key is we put our community harmony first, not last.</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I hope this media release help you understand where we stand. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Best regards</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Tetsuhide Yamaoka</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">President</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Australia-Japan Community Network</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-29078548396045095262016-08-09T12:51:00.002+10:002016-08-09T12:51:35.958+10:00Media Release : Unveiling Ceremony of Comfort Woman Statue<br />Media Release<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">7 August 2016</div><br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Unveiling Ceremony of Comfort Woman Statue</span></h2><br /><br /><br />It is regrettable that the Korean group disobeyed the conditions set by the council for the last minute approval of the unveiling ceremony. They used the car park and put offensive banners as many as they wanted while banners were banned. This is the typical nature of such a ceremony.<br /><br />Having watched the ceremony and interviewed by media we realized we were facing the stereotype labelling.<br /><br />1. Opposing statue means denying the history and women’s suffering.<br />2. Erecting statue means supporting women’s human right.<br /><br />80% of the members of AJCN are mothers with children. They were deeply concerned with the aggression posed by the Korean group knowing Japanese children were subject to discrimination and bullying in the U.S. where such statues had been erected.<br /><br />We heard of many stories such as Korean students are insulting Japanese students by calling them “rapists” and spitting over Japanese students’ lunch box. When Japanese mothers complain to the school their children are further bullied for revenge. A Japanese lady who opposed such a statue in her town received a letter from a Korean man saying “If you were not an old woman I would beat you up.” She had to report to police. This case will be heard in court. We also have received a couple of similar emails full of anger and hatred all ending with “I am disgusted with you.”<br />These are the common dark characteristic of statue supporters. (We also received supportive emails from Korean people)<br /><br />Needless to say, it is always important to pay tribute to women who suffered in war. But it is also important to protect human right of women and children living now. That is why we founded AJCN and many Australian husbands joined to protect their Japanese wives and half Japanese children. This is what we are. Our slogan is “Harmony must come first”. Strathfield Council fully supported our idea and unanimously declined the proposal to erect a statue by the same Korean people.<br /><br />It is hard to comprehend that those Korean people are aggressively demanding apology while they are opposing the governmental agreement. If you are genuinely concerned with women’s welfare you would support the agreement to move on. The Australian government is officially supporting the agreement. However there is no surprise because the group called Chon Dae Hyup based in Seoul erecting such statues all over the world and driving this move in Sydney is the one who opposed the past reconciliation efforts as well.<br /><br />About twenty years ago the Japanese government established Asian Women’s Fund. They paid individual former comfort women and personally handed a Prime Minister’s apology letter. Yet Chon Dae Hyup pressured women not to receive money and insulted those women who received money as betrayer. Their persistent destructive behavior finally stalled the reconciliation efforts. This new agreement is making sure to succeed with the full commitment of the South Korean government. But they are trying to destroy again by erecting statues and holding such ceremonies full of accusation. Who do you think is benefiting from conflicts between Japan and South Korea? Why do they need to erect that many statues to commemorate women’s suffering? Do they really care about women’s human right after all?<br /><br />We propose to honor women of all nationalities. We should not forget the Korean women treated as military supply by the South Korean government and Vietnamese women raped and slaughtered by South Korean troops. We should not forget the fact that the majority of comfort women were Japanese who never asked compensation. The Japanese government should compensate them as well. The Japanese government was forced to establish comfort stations for occupying soldiers as thousands of rape incidents were reported in the first month or two of the occupation after the WWII. We must not forget women living now, either. We should rescue those numerous number of young Korean prostitutes trafficked by Korean brokers deeply soaked in debt. We did point these out to the Korean Society but we received no reply.<br /><br />Rev Bill Crew’s comment “"We are singling out those Japanese people that offended, we are not singling out Japanese people as a whole." is utterly nonsensical. Then why does he need to erect a statue in Ashfield? Isn’t it more relevant to erect a statue of all the young children sexually abused by Uniting Church Australia if they had paid 2 million dollars for compensation? Only the one who has never sinned should throw a stone.<br /><br />We explained our concerns in full detail to Rev Crews but he never addressed them. He replied only once when we asked him how he was addressing the South Korean government’s own comfort woman system. He just said “I think all governments are bad.”<br /><br />We do have a very serious reason to oppose the statue but it appears that neither the Korean group nor Rev Crews is prepared for a rational discussion. If they were genuinely working for women’s human right they would also reflect on their own acts and would not intimidate other ethnic groups in a third country. Having seen the ceremony and listened to their speeches we are convinced that the statue is a symbol of hatred and a tool of the people who need a conflict for their own political purpose and existence.<br /><br />We seek a genuine sympathy and compassion to all the women who suffered in war. We must work towards reconciliation rather than endless accusation. We must work together to rescue women living now. Therefore we do not approve the statue and the superficial labelling. If we allow importing foreign disputes into local communities Australian multiculturalism will easily fall apart.<br /><br />Tesshu Yamaoka<br />President<br />Australia-Japan Community Network<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-26793244711455908052016-08-05T11:58:00.001+10:002016-08-05T11:58:41.978+10:00About the Comfort Woman Statue<br />Media Release<br /><div style="text-align: right;">4 August 2016</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">About the Comfort Woman Statue</span></h2><div><br /></div><div><div>Last year Strathfield Council unanimously declined the proposal to erect a comfort woman statue with a genuine reason. &nbsp;The statue was not only breaching council policy but also unwanted by the majority of the community simply because it was only dividing the community while the matter was totally unrelated to the community. &nbsp;We should respect the decision. &nbsp;One of the councilors who voted against said at the end of the extraordinary meeting in which the decision was made "Go home as Australian". &nbsp;That is the spirit we represent.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>We have been deeply shocked by the fact that Rev Crews of Uniting Church Ashfield suddenly appeared over the Internet is publicly calling the Japanese “perpetrators” and demanding apology in public. &nbsp;He does not explain why he is then supporting the Korean group trying to jeopardize the governmental agreement between Japan &amp; South Korea to formally settle the matter. &nbsp;It appears a sheer contradiction to us. &nbsp;Rev Crews declared that he is going to erect the comfort woman statue on his church grounds facing the public road to pressure “perpetrators” to apologize. &nbsp;Obviously he considers the local Japanese community “perpetrators”. &nbsp;He also commented “It is dividing the community anyway, so just apologize.” &nbsp;This is far more than just “honoring comfort women” and this is the clear evidence that the statue always comes with hatred and aggression. &nbsp;It is extremely unfair for the Japanese community having to face this kind of one-sided intimidation while the matter has got nothing to do with the local community where we have been living in harmony with all other ethnic groups. It is in addition a breach of the Racial Discrimination Laws of Australia.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Korean group has been running anti-Japan campaigns across Sydney. &nbsp;They are driven by a political activist group based in Seoul sharply confronting their own government by trying to jeopardize the governmental agreement that Australian government also supports. &nbsp;This is clearly a politically motivated activity rather than a pure commemoration. &nbsp;It is also a contradiction that they demand apology while they try to boycott the governmental agreement by running anti-Japan campaigns. &nbsp;Most former comfort women are welcoming the agreement and only some women under the activist group’s influence are opposing as they always do. &nbsp; The Korean group does not seem to care the proven fact that the South Korean government was running their own comfort woman system during the Korean War and Vietnam War and still refusing to apologize to both Korean and Vietnamese women who were brutalized by South Korean soldiers. &nbsp;The Japanese government offered apology many times. It is pointless and even hypocritical to one-sidedly blame others without reflecting on their own acts. &nbsp; We should not discriminate women who suffered in war. &nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Accordingly we do not consider the statue a “peace monument”, particularly in view of the aggressive language accompanying the discussion. &nbsp;We are a group of mums and dads determined to protect our local community and our children from any racially agitated discrimination that already happened overseas where such statues were erected. &nbsp;We can always talk about history but community harmony must come first.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>We request Rev Bill Crews immediately stop his irrelevant intimidation of the local Japanese community and simply support the efforts of the two governments trying to finally settle the sensitive matter. &nbsp;There are many Uniting Church members opposing his acts and we do not understand why he is ignoring them. &nbsp;We wish to avoid any further conflict by way of litigation and so we also urge the Korean Society of Sydney to peacefully hold whatever ceremony on Saturday inside their premises leased from the Council without any aggression and/or intimidation towards other ethnic groups and follow a number of conditions and the guide not to display the statue in public view even inside the building given by the Canterbury-Bankstown Council. &nbsp;We all respect freedom of speech but at the same time we respect the Anti-Discrimination laws of Australia and we are responsible to maintain and protect community harmony that is the essential element of Australian multiculturalism.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Lastly we express our appreciation for the efforts of the Council and in particular their letter to our lawyer Rick Mitry dated today in which conditions require activities in relation to the Statue to be discreet and say ‘Council has, is, and will always remain committed to all sections of our community without favour’.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Tesshu Yamaoka</div><div>President, Australia-Japan Community Network</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ig5udBwk3fc/V6PyAgqDEDI/AAAAAAAAAUA/IVmijcufFKkqH8ScGih-akHB8IUidposwCLcB/s1600/b11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ig5udBwk3fc/V6PyAgqDEDI/AAAAAAAAAUA/IVmijcufFKkqH8ScGih-akHB8IUidposwCLcB/s640/b11.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">A scene of an unveiling ceremony in California</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ddQ53OmgpHQ/V6PyX5oyZII/AAAAAAAAAUE/KQquwBKNUPIkEft3oypMvB1YT1-nbO3FQCLcB/s1600/Kacaplacard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ddQ53OmgpHQ/V6PyX5oyZII/AAAAAAAAAUE/KQquwBKNUPIkEft3oypMvB1YT1-nbO3FQCLcB/s640/Kacaplacard.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Placards carried by Korean activists</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-10877515061881402122016-07-29T23:08:00.000+10:002016-07-29T23:08:07.947+10:00Dear Korean students in Australia, no violence please!<br />Dear Korean students protesting the governmental agreement over the comfort woman issue,<br /><br />We know you posted a movie of your counterparts violently protesting the governmental agreement in Seoul. <br />We respect your freedom of speech but please refrain from violence. &nbsp;You must know that most ex-comfort women have welcomed the efforts made by both the governments. &nbsp;Only those under Chon Dae Hyup control are protesting as they always do anyway. <br /><br />The historical facts are very different from what you were taught at school. &nbsp;If you are doing it out of your passion &amp; sympathy please get your own government to apologize to those Vietnamese women sexually assaulted by South Korean soldiers as well.<br /><br />Most importantly, please don't import your aggressive behavior to Australia. &nbsp;We are unrelated to the issue and living in peace with all other ethnic groups. &nbsp;You have no right to disturb our life here. &nbsp; If you cannot contain your anger please stay in Korea and help those ladies there if you really want to. This is where all the different races live together in harmony under the Australian customs and values. &nbsp;We must not import foreign conflicts into this country we call home.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joe3T8nqmQA" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joe3T8nqmQA</a><br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Joe3T8nqmQA" width="480"></iframe> <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a1F6xqoHhjU/V5tSkX8zLVI/AAAAAAAAATo/mBmpex_7_SUQijfDk1kFGwHDSv2N2JPjwCLcB/s1600/k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a1F6xqoHhjU/V5tSkX8zLVI/AAAAAAAAATo/mBmpex_7_SUQijfDk1kFGwHDSv2N2JPjwCLcB/s640/k.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Best regards</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Yamaoka</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">President, Australia-Japan Community Network</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-87852089029961225282016-07-29T11:52:00.001+10:002016-08-10T12:53:18.411+10:00Why Has South Korea Still Not Apologized to the Vietnamese Comfort Women?<br /><h3>From the web site :&nbsp;examiner.com</h3><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JJGIAZGLGrQ/V6qUxjxi_HI/AAAAAAAAAV0/JJ0hsP-3Fyw6lQ_RGh5_xQa38WU6t-RzACLcB/s1600/examiner.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JJGIAZGLGrQ/V6qUxjxi_HI/AAAAAAAAAV0/JJ0hsP-3Fyw6lQ_RGh5_xQa38WU6t-RzACLcB/s1600/examiner.JPG" /></a></div><br /><h3><br /></h3>This year, at the 96th anniversary of the Korean uprising against Japan in March 1, 1919, South<br />Korean President Park Geun-hye reiterated her call for Japan to admit to the war crimes it had<br />committed during World War Two. Yet, even as she relentlessly seeks an apology from Japan, Ms.<br />Park has conveniently ignored the fact that during the Vietnam War, Korean troops raped,<br />assaulted and barbarically slaughtered thousands of Vietnam comfort women. Ms. Park cannot<br />escape blame and claim unverified reports. Why South Korea still refuses to apologize to the<br />Vietnam comfort women is not as mysterious as it seems.<br /><br />Documents from the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) show irrefutable<br />proof of South Korea’s abuses and wrongdoings during that period. Noriyuki Yamaguchi, then<br />Washington bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, mentioned in an article he wrote that<br />in July 2014, the archives revealed a letter from the US military command stationed in Ho Chi Minh<br />City (then Saigon) to Gen. Chae Myeong-sin, the military commander of South Korea in Vietnam.<br />The letter referred to the illegal diversion of US supplies to South Korea, acts of prostitution in a<br />supposedly “welfare center” where Vietnamese women were working, and US troops using that<br />center for a $38 fee per visit.<br /><br />The above report is only one of many accounts of South Korea’s atrocities towards the<br />Vietnamese people during the war. Elderly survivors have recounted their own horror stories of<br />the sex slavery and massacres they went through at that time. In 2001, recognizing the veracity of<br />the reports, then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung met with Vietnam President Tran Duc<br />Luong and offered a direct apology for South Korea’s acts on the Vietnamese people during the<br />war.<br /><br />But the day after Kim’s message of apology, Park Gein-hye, then deputy leader of the Grand<br />National Party, the opposition party at the time, criticized Kim’s statement, saying it “drove a stake<br />through the honor of South Korea.” Looking back, it was an omen of things to come if she should<br />lead the country someday.<br /><br />Seventy years and <a href="http://www.japanprobe.com/2010/02/12/yet-another-japanese-apology-to-korea/" target="_blank">several apologies later</a>, South Korean officials are still pressing Japan over the<br />WW2 comfort women issue. Like an infant fixated on a vendetta, South Korea’s sense of<br />entitlement is such that no amount of compensation or apology will satisfy them. Or is it really a<br />simple case of overblown egomania? Old and new historical events might provide clues.<br /><br />In a case of karmic retribution for South Korea, the Vietnam comfort women issue has been<br />brought to international awareness 40 years after the war ended. To recall, in 1991 Kim Hak-soon<br />was the first Korean comfort woman living in South Korea to give a testimony about her alleged<br />experience under the control of Japanese soldiers. It triggered a barrage of angry reactions<br />against Japan and put the country under scrutiny for the reparation and atonement it should give<br />to its victims. Now it is South Korea facing the very same situation. Long before the Vietnam<br />comfort women came out and identified themselves, they already <a href="http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/04/09/the-scars-of-war-vietnam-comfort-women/" target="_blank">knew about their own</a><br /><a href="http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/04/09/the-scars-of-war-vietnam-comfort-women/" target="_blank">atrocities</a> but, through cunning and clever manipulation, managed to keep it under the radar of the<br />mainstream media.<br /><br />It took a visit to Vietnam by Yoon Mi-hyang in March to uncover the grim truth about the sex<br />enslavement of Vietnam’s women by Korean and American troops. Yoon is president of the Korean<br />Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, the non-profit organization<br />formed to look into alleged crimes against women in Asia during World War Two, many of whom<br />were Koreans. In 2012, the Council had set up the Butterfly Fund and extended their mission to<br />help other women victims of war. Congo was the first country they identified. Little did they know<br />that in Vietnam, they would find out about the horrors that their own countrymen, the Korean<br />soldiers, had perpetrated.<br /><br />Another recent incident that has put Pres. Park in a negative light is the Sewol ferry disaster. On<br />April 16, 2014, the South Korean ferry Sewol, carrying 476 passengers and crew, among them 325<br />high school students, was on its way from Incheon to Jeju island when it sank, killing more than<br />300 people, mostly the students. To date, nine are still missing. It was rumored that Pres. Park was<br />nowhere to be found and she was with a former political aide said to be married then. Japanese<br />journalist Tatsuya Kato, chief of Sankei Shimbun’s Seoul bureau, was singled out for printing this<br />piece of information and <a href="http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/651335.html" target="_blank">defaming Ms. Park</a>. He was charged and indicted. This incident has<br />raised howls from international journalists amid concerns on press freedom in South Korea.<br /><br />Park’s handling of the Sewol ferry disaster was widely criticized. In the seven hours leading to the<br />disaster, she received 18 reports and her only response were two orders that were standard<br />operating procedures. It was the committee secretary who acted as spokesperson before Ms.<br />Park could face the public herself. The investigation into the botched rescue efforts, the cause of<br />the sinking and the violation of safety rules have been assailed by the victims’ families as being<br />controlled by Park’s government. Add to that her unfulfilled promise to raise the ferry from the<br />bottom of the sea. At the first anniversary of the sinking, the families refused to meet the president<br />and promised to stage regular protests.<br /><br /><b>Park’s Strategy to Gain Support and Popularity</b><br /><br />Recent polls show Park’s public support dropping from a low of 29% to a high of 46% from the preaccident<br />70 percent. In her bid to regain her popularity in the local and international community,<br />she must portray her nation as a victim. And the most convenient issue is a social one that targets<br />the “bleeding hearts” of open wounds from WW2 and stoke up nationalism via anti-Japan rhetoric<br />and propaganda. Here, the Korean comfort women fit the bill. Certainly, Japan has owned up to its’<br />share of the blame when it comes to WWS war crimes. From 1965 to 2010, its Ministers, Cabinet<br />officials and most significantly Emperors have made at least 14 apologies to South Korea alone, not<br />counting the 1995 Murayama and 1993 Kono statements. It put up the Asian Women’s Fund to give<br />monetary compensation to the comfort women in various countries, which all accepted but South<br />Korea refused to accept. On the domestic front, Park has been successful. Polls show that 57.4% of<br />respondents support not holding summit talks with Tokyo until yet another full apology from Japan<br />is given. In the United States, officials and diplomats are divided. Dr. Robert L. Shapiro, a former<br />adviser on economic affairs, sent a video message to Pres. Park stating his concern over her<br />country’s failure to forge better ties with Japan and her government’s curtailment of press<br />freedom. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Wendy R. Sherman was more direct, citing<br />Park’s desire for cheap applause by putting Japan in a bad light for propaganda’s sake alone.<br /><br />Another controversial issue between South Korea and Japan is over the Liancourt Rocks. Known<br />as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan, the two countries have been disputing the territorial<br />jurisdiction of the islands, composed of two main islets and 35 smaller rocks. These islets are<br />valued for their rich fishing grounds and production of natural gas.<br /><br />The background behind ownership of these islands is confusing. South Korea has been<br />administering them since 1954 but Japan’s legal basis of possession dates back to 1904. To put an<br />end to the dispute, Japan has suggested three times (in 1954, 1962 and 2012) that the matter be<br />taken to the International Court of Justice, but this was rejected by South Korea each time.<br /><br />South Korea hopes that the US will back them in this matter and an opinion post in the Korea<br />Herald recently criticized its’ own government’s futile brinkmanship. Political analysts are not<br />inclined to think this will lead to any serious actions, militarily speaking or that the US will take<br />sides. Both Japan and South Korea are powerful Asian allies of the United States and showing<br />favoritism would be detrimental to it’s position. But Park Hwee-rhak, a political science professor at<br />Kookmin University in Seoul says Japan is more important to America in its policy towards Asia<br />because of its economic power, military technologies and its capacity to keep China in check over<br />its ambitious expansion plans.<br /><br /><b>Comfort Women Memorials and Resolutions Spring Up in the US</b><br /><br />Some US politicians have been quick to cash in on the comfort women issue. When House<br />Resolution 121 sponsored by Rep. Michael Honda of Silicon Valley, Calif., was passed in 2007, it<br />was a go-signal for politicians to cater to the wishes of the South Korean community in their<br />electoral areas. In the guise of advancing public awareness to the injustice done to South Korean<br />women, resolutions and statues of comfort women have been put up in cities around the United<br />States. Local <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-buena-park-comfort-women-20130729-story.html" target="_blank">Korean-American organizations</a> in the area applied pressure on officials to yield.<br />These particular “voting areas” have a large community of Korean-Americans who can swing votes<br />when elections come around.<br /><br />On August 2014, the Fullerton City Council approved a resolution recognizing the Korean comfort<br />women. In New Jersey, the State Senate passed a resolution to the same effect.<br /><br />The first comfort woman monument in the US was put up in Palisades Park, NJ in 2010. In 2012,<br />another one was erected in Veterans Memorial in Eisenhower Park, Nassau County, NY. In March<br />2013, a memorial was opened in Hackensack’s Bergen County, NJ and in July 2013, in Glendale<br />Central Park, Glendale, Calif., a statue of a young girl representing a comfort woman was unveiled.<br />In August 2014, a statue was put up in Southfield, Michigan. There are plans for another statue to<br />be put up in Maryland.<br /><br />The comfort women monuments binge-building has recently spread to Canada, with a well know<br />political blogger calling it “a giant scam whose goal is to alienate Japan from the Western powers.”<br />The City of Burnaby in British Columbia is in the process of studying a proposal to put up a comfort<br />woman statue in the city.<br /><br />With the Vietnam comfort women coming out into public consciousness, can the US expect a<br />deluge of similar memorials installed in the cities and parks anytime soon? And will South Korea<br />protest against them as the Japanese did over the Korean comfort women monuments? The truth<br />is that they won’t, as the Vietnamese communities in the US hold far less political sway and the US<br />itself would rather forget the Vietnam War.<br /><br /><b>The Atrocities in the Vietnam War</b><br /><br />Just as the Japanese had their Comfort Women, South Korea also created brothels with Vietnam<br />comfort women for their and the American troops’ carnal pleasure. Numbering 5,000 to 30,000,<br />stories about them are not easy to come by, thanks to the cloud of secrecy that South Korea<br />shrouded them with.<br /><br />The massacres that the Korean military committed during the Vietnam War on the Vietnamese<br />took about 9000 lives, not counting the living survivors who had no more lives to speak of. From<br />that time until 2000 when a more liberal administration took over in South Korea, it was taboo to<br />talk about their participation in the war. In June 2002, the US National Archives and Records<br />Administration declassified documents about the Vietnam War and the massacres at Phong Nhi<br />and Phong Nhat, Hoan Chau, and Phuoc My were made public. There are also the 1966<br />massacres at Tay Vinh that saw 1200 civilians being slaughtered and at Go Dai with 380 people<br />rounded up and killed. These mass slayings were all done in the same manner. The Ha My<br />account is an example of the way the South Korean Army and Marines butchered and killed<br />innocent men, women and children without remorse.<br /><br />A first-hand account from Pamtihoa, survivor of the Ha My massacre is reprinted in The Hankyoreh.<br />It shows the trickery and brutality of the South Korean soldiers towards the Vietnamese. In March<br />1965, the 3rd US Marine amphibious force landed in Da Nang, Vietnam and took over Ho Ah Bang<br />and Di En Ban. In December 1967, the 5th regiment of the USMC handed over the Con Ninh base<br />to the 2nd Marine brigade of South Korea, called the Blue Dragons.<br /><br />The people of Ha My who had been transferred to Con Ninh base went back to their village, as life<br />was hard at the base. Whether the Korean Marines permitted them or not is not clear. But they did<br />provide the village people with food and supplies and the villagers returned the favor by giving<br />them local delicacies. But, to their horror a month later, the nice Korean soldiers turned into<br />monsters. It was on a morning that they came, entered the village with their tanks and armored<br />vehicles and moved in three different directions. Then they gathered the villagers in three different<br />locations to listen to a speech from the Korean commander while the soldiers gave candies to the<br />children.<br /><br />After the speech, the commander walked away and, after a few steps, made a hand gesture. In an<br />instant, M60 machine guns and grenade launchers came out of hiding from the woods and<br />opened fire on the shocked villagers. A total of 135 people were killed. Pamhitoa survived but lost<br />both feet. The dead were a ghastly sight – brains coming out of head, internal organs spilling out<br />of bodies, decapitated limbs. Along with a few survivors, Pamhitoa buried the dead in shallow<br />holes they had dug up. But the next day, the Korean soldiers returned with D-7 bulldozers, dug up<br />the graves and crushed all the dead bodies.<br /><br /><b>The Vietnam Comfort Women’s Stories</b><br /><br />Unlike South Korea under Pres. Park, the Vietnam government advises its citizenry to put the past<br />behind them and move on to the future. But, if only to make Ms. Park realize her inconsistency and<br />how the resolution of war issues lies in her own hands, the Vietnam comfort women must be made<br />known in the same manner as the Koreans want their stories to be shared. Surviving Vietnamese<br />women speak of serial rapes several times a day, brutal sexual assaults and killing them after the<br />rapes. One woman who was nine months pregnant had her stomach slit open and her entrails<br />along with her baby hanging out.<br /><br />Korean comfort women survivors Kim Bok-dong and Gil Won-ok as well as the Korean Council for<br />the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan have called on the South Korean<br />government to acknowledge the country’s wrongdoings and atone for them by way of an official<br />apology and compensation. It was an emotional moment and an eye opener at the House of<br />Sharing last April when Yoo Hee-nam, a comfort woman for the Japanese Army met with Nguyen<br />Tan Lan (64) and Nguyen Thi Thanh (55), massacre survivors.<br /><br />What makes the Vietnam comfort women issue worse are the consequences of the rapes are the<br />children born out of these barbaric acts- called the Lai Dai Han, a term for mixed blooded children<br />who are viewed as contemptible and shunned by society. There are about 5,000 to 30,000 of<br />them, unacknowledged by their Korean fathers.<br /><br />In fairness, Korean soldiers were not alone in raping the Vietnamese women. From August 1964 to<br />May 7, 1975, there were more than <a href="http://www.nationalvietnamveteransfoundation.org/statistics.htm" target="_blank">9 million</a> military men who served in the Vietnam War. Accounts<br />and research have proven that <a href="http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/Stuldreher_Rape.html" target="_blank">American GIs</a> also participated in the rapes. But they were kept<br />hidden and if they did reach army court-martial trials, convictions were few and sentences were<br />light. The US government cannot deny that it shares accountability for the war crimes in the<br />Vietnam War along with South Korea. While the official stand is always not to condone such acts,<br />it’s a different matter out in the battlefields. Commanders and generals turn a blind eye to the truth.<br />But the war ended decades ago and the time has come for both countries to face their<br />responsibilities and cease the hypocritical finger pointing at Japan.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjd6XVapfl8/V6qVoTDGG7I/AAAAAAAAAV4/TO_Gqz04Y-olI-tb1lknTTVnRAsNS-6jwCLcB/s1600/chrisgrasso.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjd6XVapfl8/V6qVoTDGG7I/AAAAAAAAAV4/TO_Gqz04Y-olI-tb1lknTTVnRAsNS-6jwCLcB/s1600/chrisgrasso.JPG" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-42656362361605412602016-07-18T19:00:00.001+10:002016-07-19T12:57:28.795+10:00한국인 여러분께 평화롭게 살아 보면 어떨까요?<div><br /></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are opposing the erection of Comfort Women statue in Sydney.<br />We have put together a message along with our Australian members to Korean people living in Australia on the Comfort Women statue issue.<br />We are hoping to share our view with many thoughtful Korean people and all other ethnic groups valuing the Australian multiculturalism.</span><br /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">한국인 여러분께 &nbsp;평화롭게 살아 보면 어떨까요?</span></h2><h4 style="text-align: center;">∼ 다시 일어난 위안부 소녀상 설치 문제를 둘러싸고 ∼</h4><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">AJCN대표 야마오카 데쓰히데</div><br /><br />유감스럽게도 시드니에서 한국계 반일단체가 또 다시 위안부 소녀상을 세우자고 활동중입니다. 그들은 작년말에 위안부 문제에 관해서 한일 양국정부가 이 문제를 불가역적으로 해결하기로 합의한 것을 굴욕이라고 반발하고 전세계에서 위안부 소녀상을 더 세우려고 하는, 북한과의 관계를 지적되는 정신대문제대책협의회와 연계하고 있습니다. 한일 합의에 반대하는 것은 자유라고 하더라도 관계가 전혀 없는 제삼국에서 지역 융화를 깨는 적대적인 행동을 취하는 것은 지극히 부적절합니다. 작년에 많은 한국계 주민들이 사는 스트라스필드 시의회에서 커뮤니티의 융화를 깨서는 안된다는 이유로 위안부 소녀상 설치 요구가 각하되었습니다.그런데 그런 대다수 주민의 의견을 무시하고 언론의 자유를 악용함으로써 일본을 비방하는 활동을 하고 있는 일부 사람들 때문에 양식이 있는 한국계 주민들까지 반일이라는 오해를 살 수 있는 것은 안타까운 &nbsp;일입니다.<br /><br />이 반일단체에 속하는 한국인들은 일본인들이 반대하는 것을 “과거의 만행을 폭로되고 싶지 않기 때문이다”고 말합니다. 이것은 늘 느끼는 것이지만 &nbsp;그들은 역사적 사실을 검증하는 것에는 관심이 없는 것 같습니다. 놀랍게도 일본에서는 완전히 조작된 이야기로 인정되었으며 아사히신문도 기사를 취소하고 사죄한 “한반도에서 여성들을 사냥했다고 하는 요시다 세이지” 라는 인물의 증언이 한국에서는 극히 최근까지 진실 이야기로 수능생을 위한 교육 텔레비전에서 가르쳤던 것을 알게 되었습니다. 미국 국립보존기록관에서 찾은 기록에 의하면 전쟁중에 미군에 잡힌 조선인 포로가 이구동성에 “만난 위안부는 모두 자주적인 지원 아니면 부모가 팔아버린 딸들이며 그것은 조선 문화에서는 보통 일이었다. 만일 일본인이 폭력적으로 여자들을 납치하려고 한다면 조선 남자들은 노약을 막론하고 목숨을 걸어서라도 저항했을 것이다”고 대답했습니다. 과연 세월호 참사 때의 가족들 행동을 보면 당시 조선인이 저항하지 않았다는 것은 도저히 믿을 수가 없습니다. 하물며 당시 한반도 경찰관 대부분이 조선인이었으며 수십만에 이르는 조선인 남성들이 일본군에 지원하고 있었습니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 여성 강제 연행에 저항하기 위한 폭동은 하나도 기록되지 않았습니다. 이 사실 하나만 보아도 요시다 세이지의 증언이 완전 엉터리이었던 것을 알 수 있는데 (뒤에 요시다 본인이 그것이 픽션임을 인정했습니다) 실은 &nbsp;제일 먼저 “요시다 증언이 사실은 아니다” 그렇게 발표한 것은 제주도 등에서 실제로 조사한 한국인 저널리스트였습니다.<br /><br />저희들은 호주에서 역사논쟁을 벌이려고 하는 것은 아닙니다. 그러나 호주에 사는, 전쟁 이후 태어난 저희들에게는 전혀 관계가 없는 과거사이며 일본 정부가 이미 몇 번이나 사죄한 일을 둘러싸고 아직도 시드니 등에서 시위 활동이 계속되고 있는 데다가 위안부 소녀상이 세워지는 바람에 일본계 어린이들이 학교에서 괴롭히는 것을 그냥 보고 있을 수만 없습니다. 조금 전에는 위안부 소녀상 설치될 교회의 한 목사님이 일본인을 범죄자 취급하는 듯한 발언을 하는 동영상이 인터넷에 올랐는데 그것을 본 기독교도인 일본인과 현지 호주인이 얼마나 슬퍼했는지 생각해 본 적이 있습니까?<br /><br />한국군 병사들이 한국 전쟁과 베트남 전쟁 때 여성을 학살한 것을 이유로 주 시드니 한국영사관 앞에서 매월 시위활동을 하겠다, 한국 전쟁과 베트남 전쟁 때 위안부를 위로하기 위한 소녀상을 전 세계에 세우겠다, 그런 소리를 들으면 한국계 여러분께서는 &nbsp;어떻게 느낍니까?<br />그들은 한국이 해 온 짓들을 모르는 것일까요, 아니면 모르는 척하는 것일까요? 한국전쟁 때 박근혜대통령의 아버지인 박정희대통령 명령으로 한국군 운영하에 UN군과 한국군을 위한 위안소가 만들어졌고 여성들은 위안부 또는 양공주로 불렸습니다. 그리고 베트남전쟁 중에는 많은 베트남 여성들이 한국군에 강간당한 끝에 학살되기도 하고 매춘부 일을 강요되기도 하고 라이따이한으로 불리는 수천 명이나 되는 혼혈아를 남겼습니다. 한국병사에게 버림 받은 그들은 베트남 사회에서 차별당하고 위축되면서 살고 있습니다. 이것들은 검증된 사실이며 베트남에 가 보면 지금도 한국군의 만행을 묘사한 기념비를 볼 수가 있습니다. 한편 여성의 인권문제는 아직도 심각합니다. 한국 국회의원이 “10만 명의 한국 여성이 해외에서 매춘 일을 하고 있다”고 발언한 적이 있는데 그 중 5만 명이 일본에서 일하고 있다고 하며 또 북미에서 많은 한국 매춘부가 당국에 적발되었습니다. 한국 인구를 생각하면 놀라울 정도의 수라고 말할 수 있습니다. 시드니에서도 1000 명이나 되는 한국 여성이 매춘 일을 하고 있는데 그 여성들 대부분은 고금리 빚 때문에 어쩔 수 없는 상황에 빠져 있는 것입니다. 그녀들을 착취하는 것은 한국인 브로커입니다.<br /><br />위안부 소녀상을 세우고 일본을 규탄하려는 한국인들은 지금 현재 눈 앞에서 착취되고 있는 한국 여성들을 구하기 위한 노력을 하고 있는 것일까요? 사람이면 &nbsp;인종을 막론하고 전쟁 중에 고생한 모든 여성에게 깊이 동정해야 합니다. 그리고 지금의 문제에 공동으로 대처해야 합니다. 타민족을 공격함으로써 호주가 자랑하는 다민족주의를 위협할 때가 아닙니다.<br /><br />호주에 사는 일본인은 지금까지 어느 인종과도 문제를 일으킬 일이 없이 평화로이 살아 왔습니다. 그러나 일부 한국인이 반일운동을 시작한 이후 한국계 가게와 &nbsp;식당을 피하는 일본인이 늘어나고 있는 것은 대단히 유감스럽게 생각합니다. 지금까지 친하게 지내 오던 한국계 친구,부부 사이에 균열이 생겨 슬퍼하고 있는 일본인도 많습니다. 호주에 사는 일본인과 한국인에게는 이 나라에서 어떻게 하면 조화롭게 서로 협력해서 살아 갈 수 있을지가 더 중요할 것입니다. 저희들은 양식 있는 한국계 사람들과 함께 이 나라의 평화와 미래를 지키고 싶습니다.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sv8To2Go8VA/V4yYDjefz1I/AAAAAAAAATU/dwQQsp2f7wwQ_WklyZvRBZUmsas4JVWhwCEw/s1600/vietnam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sv8To2Go8VA/V4yYDjefz1I/AAAAAAAAATU/dwQQsp2f7wwQ_WklyZvRBZUmsas4JVWhwCEw/s400/vietnam.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">베트남에 남은 한국군에 의한 현지인 학살 기념비.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-31157848205131325722016-07-18T18:54:00.000+10:002016-07-21T11:47:25.588+10:00To everyone in the Korean community; Can we live peacefully together in Australia?<div><br /></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are opposing the erection of Comfort Women statue in Sydney.<br />We have put together a message along with our Australian members to Korean people living in Australia on the Comfort Women statue issue.<br />We are hoping to share our view with many thoughtful Korean people and all other ethnic groups valuing the Australian multiculturalism.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: &quot;helvetica neue light&quot; , , &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: &quot;century&quot; , serif; line-height: 105%;">To everyone in the Korean community;</span></span></b></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red; font-family: &quot;century&quot; , serif; line-height: 105%;">Can we live peacefully together in Australia?</span></span></b></h2></div><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;century&quot; , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 105%;"><br /></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.75pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">T Yamaoka </span><o:p></o:p></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 105%;">President, Australia-Japan Community Network (AJCN)</span></div><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 105%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 105%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 105%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">As you may be aware, the Japanese government has made another apology and promised to give 1 billion yen to South Korea to "finally and irreversibly” resolve the controversial "Comfort Women" issue at the end of last year. Unfortunately, however, a group of people with Korean background is still trying to erect the Comfort Women statue in Sydney. This group of people have strong connections with Chon Dae Hyup, a prominent organisation that declared to erect more "Comfort Women" statues around the world and jeopardise the governmental agreement. Chon Dae Hyup is believed to have ties with North Korea and it has been on the watch list of the South Korean government.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">No matter how they object to the agreement, however, it is extremely inappropriate to take this antagonistic action and disturb harmony in a country such as Australia that has nothing to do with this issue. Last year, in Strathfield where many people with Korean background reside, the proposal to erect the Comfort Woman statue was rejected by the Council, reasoning that it may cause significant disturbance to the peace and communal harmony. &nbsp;Despite the peaceful opinion of the majority, some people are even more actively disparaging Japan by abusing their freedom of speech. Because of this, it is truly regrettable that even the majority of thoughtful, considerate Korean people are misunderstood to be a part of this anti-Japan group. Through our efforts to stop the erection of the statue in Strathfield last year, we met many Korean people who said that they didn't want the statue in Australia, but they were afraid to speak up because they were worried about their family's safety in South Korea if they appeared to be pro-Japanese (up until the governmental agreement was made between two countries the South Korean government was using this issue as a political tool to gain power over Japan). &nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">Koreans belonging to this anti-Japan group say, the reason of why Japanese people object is “that they do not want their barbaric act of past to be exposed.” &nbsp;However, this is always the case that they are not seem to be interested in investigating historical facts. Are they really interested in representing history correctly? &nbsp;It came to be known that up until recently the educational TV program for high school students in South Korea had been broadcasting the account of a Japanese communist, Seiji Yoshida, who claimed in his novel he conducted “abduction of women” on the Korean Peninsula as part of a Japanese military operation. Although his testimony was reported by the Asahi Newspaper as a fact at the time, he later confessed that it was a fictional story. Since then The Asahi Newspaper has withdrawn the articles and apologised to its readers. According to the official report in the US Archives Library, South Korean soldiers in the Japanese army who were arrested as prisoners of war by the US army during the World War II testified that:</span></span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">“All Korean prostitutes that PoW have seen in the Pacific were volunteers or had been sold by their parents into prostitution. This is a proper Korean way of thinking. Conscription of women by the Japanese army would have outraged the old and young alike and they would not have tolerated such a scheme. Men would've risen up in rage, killing Japanese no matter what the consequences might have been."</span></span></blockquote><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">Please note that most of the police officers in Korea were Koreans and several hundred thousands of Korean men also volunteered their services to the Japanese Army. What were they doing while their women were being abducted by the Japanese Army if the story were true? &nbsp;Furthermore, when Yoshida published his fictional novel it was actually a Korean journalist who investigated the incidents on Jeju Island that he wrote about and was told that no such abductions ever took place by the Japanese army.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">We are not really interested in arguing over historical controversies here in Australia. However, we cannot remain silent, knowing that the anti-Japan demonstrations are still continuing and the potential erection of the Comfort Woman statue may cause racial abuse of Japanese children in schools here in Australia. The Japanese government has already made apologies numerous times and made many efforts to resolve this issue.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">This year, in spite of our efforts to keep the harmony, the minister of Ashfield Uniting Church is supporting the erection of the statue on his church land. What really upset us who live in the local community was that his interview regarding the statue was posted on Facebook by the anti-Japan activists group, and he called the Japanese people as “perpetrators.” How sad did Christian Japanese and local Australians feel by watching this video?&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">How do the Korean people feel, if political demonstrations are conducted in front of the Korean Consulate General of Sydney repeatedly accusing them of war crimes that happened so many years ago? How would you feel if your church minister called you a perpetrator for something that you didn't do? How would you feel if the ex-comfort women from the Korean war and Vietnamese war erect the statues all over the world against your government?&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">Are you aware that the Korean government still has not made any apologies to the comfort women of the Korean War nor to the victims of the Vietnam War? The fact that when Park Chung-hee who was the President at the time, the father of the current President Park Geun-hye, was directly involved in setting up comfort women stations under his governmental management for both UN troops and Korean troops during the Korean war. In the Vietnam war, Korean soldiers engaged in rape and murder of thousands of Vietnamese women, and forced Vietnamese women to work as prostitutes. The worst consequences of those rapes are the thousands of children born out of these barbaric acts- called the Lai Dai Han, a term for mixed blooded children who are viewed as disreputable and shunned by society to this very day. These are verified facts, with memorials which describe the Korean troops’ atrocities towards Vietnamese women in Vietnam during that war.</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">Many years have passed since then but the violation of Woman’s human rights in South Korea still continues as a very serious issue today. As members of the South Korean Parliament stated that “100,000 Korean women are working as prostitutes overseas,” half of them are working in Japan, and many of them are arrested in the US. The number of women involved in this sex industry is considerably large in relation to the population of South Korea. In Sydney, it is estimated that a thousand Korean women are working as prostitutes and many of them are forced to work in order to pay off debts with super-high interest rates that they owe to the Korean brokers who exploit them.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">Are anti-Japan activists really making efforts to rescue these Korean prostitutes who are being exploited in today's world? &nbsp;Shouldn't we be compassionate towards all women who suffered during the war? Isn't it more important to deal with the current issues rather than something that happened more than 70 years ago? Shouldn't we be living here in Australia with the mind that values Australian multi-culturalism, diversity and harmony?&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">The Japanese community in Australia have lived in peace and harmony for decades, and never had any conflict with any other racial groups. However, because of the anti-Japan propaganda carried out by the people who have a political agenda to divide the community, it is sad that many Japanese people began to feel afraid of going to Korean shops and restaurants. Some Japanese people who have Korean partners and/or Korean friends are finding it more and more difficult to deal with this issue without damaging their relationships.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="color: #00000a; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 15.4px;">It is regrettable that our community harmony has been affected by this politically motivated anti-Japan propaganda, involving many innocent people and wasting our precious time and energy on an issue that is irrelevant to our community. We sincerely hope and pray for all our sakes that we can put our community harmony first. The majority of Japanese and Korean people in Australia understand the significance of sharing harmony, cooperation, and respect towards others. We wish to keep life and the future of this country in peace, with thoughtful South Korean people.</span></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sv8To2Go8VA/V4yYDjefz1I/AAAAAAAAATM/NCjyZUie8NI3WFGQrSeVroy4xZzrzaVXgCLcB/s1600/vietnam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sv8To2Go8VA/V4yYDjefz1I/AAAAAAAAATM/NCjyZUie8NI3WFGQrSeVroy4xZzrzaVXgCLcB/s400/vietnam.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">A monument depicting Korean troop’s war crime during Vietnam War</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-83542144999021478182015-08-24T16:55:00.001+10:002015-08-24T16:55:18.740+10:00Australian media articles on Comfort Women Statue Issues in Strathfield<br />At the Extraordinary City Council Meeting held on August 11, the proposal of erecting a Comfort Women statue submitted by the anti-Japan Korean - Chinese organization was rejected unanimously by <b>6-0</b>.<br /><br />Subsequently two newspaper articles were written from different angles.<br /><br /><br /><b>Srtrathfield Scene</b> is relatively moderate among all the local newspapers of the city keeping close relationship with Strathfield city council.<br />Its article depicts the outcome as the victory of Australian democracy and multiculturalism.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ourstrathfield.com.au/article/victory-democracy-comfort-women-statue-fails-get-go-ahead" target="_blank">http://www.ourstrathfield.com.au/article/victory-democracy-comfort-women-statue-fails-get-go-ahead</a><br /><br /><b>The Sydney Morning Herald</b> reported vandalism and manifestation of hatred conducted by the proposers and one of AJCN's responses to it. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/threats-insults-and-tyres-slashed-in-strathfield-over-comfort-women-memorial-20150814-giz7ri.html" target="_blank">http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/threats-insults-and-tyres-slashed-in-strathfield-over-comfort-women-memorial-20150814-giz7ri.html</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-30709465036817904932015-08-21T12:19:00.002+10:002015-08-21T12:26:36.971+10:00The result of Strathfield Council Meeting of 11 August,2015 by Sumiyo Egawa, Secretary-General of AJCN<br />On the 11th of August at 6:30pm, Strathfield Council held an “Extraordinary Council Meeting”<br />at Strathfield Town Hall, where nearly 300 people gathered to seek an outcome. &nbsp;It had a heavy atmosphere with two tough looking security guards going through everyone’s belongings at the entrance.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8j4EAm17MMU/VdaHTm7W5rI/AAAAAAAAAK0/1hUZDE2BplQ/s1600/photo2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8j4EAm17MMU/VdaHTm7W5rI/AAAAAAAAAK0/1hUZDE2BplQ/s320/photo2.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AcQzwcgdfis/VdaHVtGT77I/AAAAAAAAAK8/I28FdKSakv8/s1600/photo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AcQzwcgdfis/VdaHVtGT77I/AAAAAAAAAK8/I28FdKSakv8/s320/photo1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Just before the meeting began, there was a rush for extra chairs from the back as the meeting on this controversial issue had attracted more people to this local town hall. More than 100 Japanese who responded to AJCN’s call took up positions in front rows; they gave vigorous applause for speakers going against the proposal of the controversial statue.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PEF2hNIlWaM/VdaJ7HdtaOI/AAAAAAAAALI/NdoGm94v-hY/s1600/Kacaplacard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PEF2hNIlWaM/VdaJ7HdtaOI/AAAAAAAAALI/NdoGm94v-hY/s320/Kacaplacard.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&lt;captured placards of KACA by AJCN&gt;</div><br /><br />Six councillors voted unanimously to reject the proposal of building a statue called “Three Sisters” in Strathfield Station Square, which was submitted by KACA (The Committee of United Austral Korean-Chinese Alliance against Japanese War Crimes) on 25th March 2014 to the council.<br />After the public hearing on 1 April 2014, the council deferred the decision to ministerial offices including the Prime Minister’s office and NSW Premier’s office, and then the proposal was stalled for 16 months as nobody wanted to make &nbsp;a decision for the council.<br /><br />In the meeting on 11 August, four speakers from each side were allowed to lay out the points of their arguments for 5 minutes each.<br /><br />Right after the speeches, 6 councillors expressed their views for 5 minutes each over the proposal of building the “Three Sisters” statue, and then took a vote to close the meeting.<br /><br />Since there was a recommendation announced prior to the meeting by council management official that the statue won’t meet the criteria of the Council’s Memorial Policy, and there shouldn’t be any further actions, the vote was actually questioning whether they would endorse the recommendation.<br /><br /><b>The result was six to zero</b>, all councillors supporting the recommendation and rejecting the KACA's proposal. Councillor Sang Ok (Korean descent) was absent from the proceedings due to a conflict of interest in this matter.<br /><br />AJCN is through the battle of 16 months or more, based on the non-confrontational rationalism in our prospectus and consistently, continues &nbsp;the civil activities of different dimensions from the government level such as Federal, State, etc. &nbsp;AJCN 's actions were totally civil to protect the present and the future of all women and children by working together with Australians, Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Koreans and other people. Our ultimate goal for this battle is not only for protecting Japanese descendants’ peaceful life and pride in Australia, but more importantly to observe the Australia’s multiculturalism by securing a sound relationship with various ethnic groups. &nbsp;We won the battle.<br /><br />Anti Japan Chinese-Korean organisation officially states that their statue building lobbying will continue in other councils of Australia, AJCN will analyse and theorise our recent movement to develop a "<span style="color: red;"><b>Sydney model</b></span>" and share this series of actions to fight against political propaganda in order to maintain harmonious communities.<br /><br />Although it was clear from the beginning the proposal evidently would breach the council policy, 16 months were wasted. It was extremely unusual to conduct the second round of speeches to argue the case. &nbsp;After all, we have come to the realisation that our democratic society provide us with the tools for protecting ourselves if we choose to battle, but we easily stumble if we do nothing.<br /><br />We would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who was involved in this movement and to all who gave us support.<br /><br />Please find below link for speeches and councilors’ comments.<br /><a href="http://www.ourstrathfield.com.au/article/victory-democracy-comfort-women-statue-fails-get-go-ahead" target="_blank">http://www.ourstrathfield.com.au/article/victory-democracy-comfort-women-statue-fails-get-go-ahead</a><br /> <br /><br /><u>Names of speakers and councilors who made a vote </u><br /><br />1. Speakers (in order of speeches)<br /><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1. Mr.Brian Rycroft &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<span style="color: red;">against</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2. Mr.Peter Wertheim &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="color: blue;">pro</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3. Mr.Glenn McRae &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<span style="color: red;">against</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4. Mr.Panayiotis Diamadis &nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="color: blue;">pro</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>5. Mr.Geoff Boyce &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="color: red;">against</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>6. Mr.Dong Dong Yang &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<span style="color: blue;">pro</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>7. Mrs.Mieko Goto &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="color: red;">against</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>8. Miss.Yeo Ji Yan &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span style="color: blue;">pro</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />2. Councilors who commented and voted (in order of speeches)<br /><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1. Cr Helen McLucas &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (Independent)<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2. Cr Daniel Bott &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (Labor)<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3. Cr Stephanie Kokkolis &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;(Liberal)<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4. Cr Andrew Soulos &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (Deputy Mayor, Independent)<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>5. Cr Gulian Vaccari &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;(Mayor, Liberal)<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>6. Cr Raj Datta &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (Labor)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-35859962336957985422015-07-30T22:36:00.001+10:002015-08-13T14:03:37.781+10:00Strathfield City Councillors to vote on “ Comfort Women Statue” atextraordinary council meeting to be held on 11th August !<div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3673576971368444690" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="bumpedFont15" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">WHERE : &nbsp;Strathfield City Town Hall, 65 Homebush Bay Rd, Strathfield&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">WHEN : From 6.30pm Tuesday 11th Aug</span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="bumpedFont15" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3673576971368444690" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s6"><span class="bumpedFont15">We kindly request and encourage all good people of Strathfield and beyond to attend this extraordinary council meeting, where the elected council members will be making a historic landmark decision on the future of harmony in multi cultural Australia. The council will be deciding whether this is the beginning of many more statues of hate, division and vilification to be erected in Strathfield. If you strongly believe in Australian values and a fair go for one and all ,then please come along and participate in the&nbsp;</span></span><span class="s6"><span class="bumpedFont15">defence</span></span><span class="s6"><span class="bumpedFont15">&nbsp;of these values.</span></span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span class="s7"><span class="bumpedFont15" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This statue application should have been rejected on day one as it went against the memorials policy of Strathfield Council, but instead became a long drawn out political hot potato for all levels of Government in Australia. This affair has been most unsavory to say the least for all involved and has wasted valuable council time and resources, not to mention local rate payers taxes.</span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3673576971368444690" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span class="s7"><span class="bumpedFont15" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This statue application proposed by “KACA”( Korean Committee of United Austral Korean and Chinese Alliance Against Japanese War Crimes in WW2 ) with the support of Councillor Ok has divided the local community and has highlighted the complex international political nature of this subject which we feel is totally irrelevant in local Australian government affairs. &nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span class="s8"><span class="bumpedFont15" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The sooner this affair is brought to a harmonious conclusion the better, so the residents of Strathfield can once again return to their peaceful lives.</span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><br /></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s8"><span class="bumpedFont15">For any enquiries, please send an email to&nbsp;</span></span><span class="s7"><span class="bumpedFont15">Egawa, Secretary-Genral of AJCN</span></span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span class="s7"><span class="bumpedFont15" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="mailto:jcnaus@googlegroups.com">jcnaus@googlegroups.com</a>.</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Kind Regards,</span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s8"><span class="bumpedFont15"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="s8"><span class="bumpedFont15"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="s4" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7hU9LZp-ICI/VbrQTMGs6GI/AAAAAAAAAJY/FZfgmRLVBmA/s1600/strathfield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="491" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7hU9LZp-ICI/VbrQTMGs6GI/AAAAAAAAAJY/FZfgmRLVBmA/s640/strathfield.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3673576971368444690" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-30576874331062921322015-04-16T17:49:00.007+10:002015-08-13T14:03:49.335+10:00What really occurred in Nanjing?<br /><br />The Chinese government has trumpeted 300,000 civilians were massacred in Nanjing, and recently increased the number of victims to 400,000 without any basis what so ever.<br /><br />On every occasion where somebody of Japanese origin tries to explain that "the battle of Nanking" happened but the "Nanking Massacre" didn't, the person is accused of being &nbsp;"a history denier", "a revisionist", or " extreme right". Because of this, the Japanese people have been silent regarding this issue. It's been much easier to accept their version of this story and apologize and in fact, many Japanese prime ministers have also apologized without challenging the commonly accepted historical view.<br /><br />The problem that the Japanese government finds itself in is that the Chinese and Korean governments never cease accusing Japan for what happened over 70 years ago and demand more and more apologies and monetary payments. The latest repetitive demand was only voiced last year when they said, "Japan never apologized" when interviewed by international media outlets. When the Japanese people presented the undeniable fact that Japanese Prime Ministers have apologized on numerous occasions in the past and made reparations and given substantial amounts of foreign aid, they changed their rhetoric to "Japan hasn't apologized sincerely enough."<br /><br />So the recent development in the relationships between &nbsp;South Korea and Japan, and China and Japan have escalated because the Japanese people are exhausted from being constantly and tirelessly harassed by the Chinese and Korean Government backed international Anti-Japan propaganda organizations. The Japanese have been pushed to the point where they are now forced to confront some of these ever growing outrageous historical claims which has propelled these issues into the international community where the untruths claimed by the Koreans and Chinese are only now being gradually exposed.<br /><br />When you hear the "Nanking Massacre" you automatically think of those horrible images of people brutally murdered or being buried alive. Those photographic images, however, have been studied and most of them were found to be fabricated for propaganda purposes or taken from other incidents that occurred in China and some of those atrocities were actually committed by the Chinese themselves, not by the Japanese at all.<br /><br />We encourage you to please watch this video with an open mind.<br /><br />What really occurred in Nanjing?<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G-wFWg4MyfA" width="480"></iframe> <br /><br />Please also see another related video.<br /><br />Faces of Japanese soldiers in China you may not have seen before.<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_sg3TgMjMK4" width="480"></iframe> <br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-56359034199703224782015-04-15T19:13:00.003+10:002015-08-13T14:03:59.044+10:00The Video that the Japanese Department of Foreign Affairs released has become a hot topic in East Asia.<br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">According to Japanese traditions, being humble and modest is regarded as a virtue, and praising themselves or talking about their own achievements is something they are not familiar with and even feel uncomfortable about. Recently, however, the Japanese people and government have come to the realization the hard way that this virtue is not fully understood by some in the international community which now demands the Japanese government produce and disseminate factual informative videos.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The video titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fo6Zz_w0WE&amp;feature=youtu.be"><span class="a">“Nation Building in the Post War Era: Japan as a Reliable Partner”</span></a>has upset some Koreans who deny the extensive support Japan gave in their economic development during the post war period. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4Fo6Zz_w0WE" width="480"></iframe> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">For example, if you read the Wikipedia article&nbsp; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River" target="_blank"><span class="a">"Miracleon the Han River"</span></a> which reflects Korean understanding of the subject, there is no mention at all of the contribution made by Japan to South Korea's post war economic achievements.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">On the contrary, the Japanese government spent over $ 600 billion on building infrastructure on the Korean Peninsula during the annexation era (more than they invested in Japan at the time ) and since 1965 they have also provided substantial financial and technical aid support.&nbsp; Some of the contributions are as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">*In 1965, the "Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea" was signed and Japan provided $300 million in grants, $200 million in loan aid up to the end of 1975 (approx.1.6 times of South Korea's national budget, equivalent to $3.6 trillion in today's value).&nbsp; However, the total sum of financial support provided between 1965 and 2001,&nbsp; amounted to a staggering 3.8 times what was originally agreed to in the agreement above. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">*In 1997 when South Korea was caught up in the Asian Currency Crisis, Japan provided $10 billion of financial support through an international support framework and in additional gave a further $8.35 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">*$20 billion in 2006 as an emergency relief fund when the Korean Won became overvalued. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">*</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: &quot;ＭＳ Ｐ明朝&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">¥</span><span lang="EN-US">30 billion loan for the construction of the World Cup Football Stadium in 2002.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">(Approx. $ 107 billion of these loans have until this day, still not been repaid to Japan.) <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Please watch the video here;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fo6Zz_w0WE<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Related videos:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3viEWNLAVG0"><span class="a"><span lang="EN-AU">Pursuing a Forward-Looking Relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea</span></span></a></span><span class="a"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3viEWNLAVG0" width="560"></iframe> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Japan And Korea In Post-War Era; Economic Aid, ODA, Technology Licensing, Compensation and Apologies<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jd4wbSFCQPg" width="480"></iframe> <br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-17144612890145650892015-03-20T19:12:00.001+11:002015-08-13T14:04:27.160+10:00We wish to announce that we have recently revised our organization's name from Japan Community Network (JCN) to Australia-Japan Community Network (AJCN) as of 25 February, 2015.<br />AJCN is a multicultural organization consisting of local Japanese and non-Japanese Australian residents of numerous ethnic backgrounds. &nbsp;Our aim is to achieve harmonious and peaceful communities beyond ethnic boundaries. &nbsp;These aims have been clearly demonstrated and accordingly have come to the conclusion that a change in name from Japan Community Network to Australia-Japan Community Network was desirable to better and more accurately reflect our diverse organization.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3673576971368444690.post-3998939279720659632014-12-24T19:45:00.004+11:002015-08-13T14:04:35.304+10:00UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No. 49<br />Mr.Moteki Hiromichi, Secretary General of<br />Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact sent recently to us this article.<br /><br />This official US record made by direct interrogation of comfort women captured on the battlefield is one of the most important source materials related to documenting the real comfort women. <br /><br />In 1944, the United States Army captured some Comfort Women in Burma and were interrogated by the U.S. Army. The Army filed "Report Number 49" and it stated that the ladies were well-paid prostitutes.<br /><br />It clearly defined a "comfort girl" as nothing more than a prostitute or "professional camp follower." (Preface) It also stated that their average month net pay was 750 Yen, which was 75 times higher than that of a private first class soldier's pay of 10 Yen. (Pay and Living Condition)<br /><br />These show that the comfort women were merely very highly paid prostitutes, and having absolutely nothing to do with "sexual slavery."<br /><br /><br /><br />Whole copy of Report No.49: <a href="http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_4/8_S1.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_4/8_S1.pdf</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Japan Community Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08654218994694044070noreply@blogger.com